In  Black  and  White 


An  Interpretation  of  Southern  Life 


In  Black  and  White 


BISHOP  W.  R  LAMBUTH  OF  M.  E  CHURCH 
(SOUTH)  AND  PROFESSOR  GILBERT  ON  THIER 
900  MILE  TRAMP  IN  AFRICA. 


In  Black  and  White 


AN  INTERPRETATION 
of  SOUTHERN  LIFE 


By 
L.    H.    HAMMOND 

Author  of  "The  Master-Word" 

With  an  Introduction  by 
JAMES  H.  DILLARD,  M.A.,  LL.D., 

President  of  the  Jeanes  Foundation  Board,  Director  of 
the  Slater  Fund 


NEW  YORK         CHICAGO         TORONTO 

Fleming   H.  Revell   Company 
LONDON  AND  EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


To  my  mother  and  my  father, 

both  slave-owners  in  earlier  life, 
whose  broad  thinking  and  selfless  living 
first  taught   me   the   meaning   of  human 

brotherhood, 
I  dedicate  this  book, 
with  a  gratitude  deepened  by  time, 
and  a  love  undiminished  by  death. 


331264 


Introduction 

THE  problem  of  the  South  to-day  is 
how  to  find  voices  and  hearings  for 
her  best  thoughts  and  sentiments. 
Especially  is  this  true  in  regard  to  the  rela 
tionship  between  the  races.  Public  sentiment 
rules.  It  rules  the  attitude  of  individuals. 
It  makes  and  unmakes  the  laws.  It  enforces 
or  neglects  the  laws  that  are  made.  Public 
sentiment  is  mainly  dependent  upon  the 
thoughts  and  sentiments  that  find  expression 
in  the  constant  utterances  of  pulpit,  press,  and 
political  campaigns.  On  this  question  of  race 
relationship  the  pulpit  in  the  South  is  remark 
ably  silent.  The  point  is  not  raised  whether 
or  not  the  province  of  the  pulpit  is  to  discuss 
public  and  social  problems.  The  fact  is  that 
the  pulpit  in  the  South  is  remarkably  silent 
on  the  race  question,  even  on  the  side  of  re 
ligion  and  religious  duties.  With  few  excep 
tions  the  direct  contributions  of  the  Southern 
clergy  in  establishing  public  sentiment  on  this 
question  have  amounted  to  little,  and  may 
almost  be  left  out  of  count.  It  is  the  editor 
7 


f.*  „•„.>.;<  »       K     .     »»^ 

8  INTRODUCTION 

and  the  politician  who,  more  exclusively  in 
the  South  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  coun 
try,  influence  public  sentiment  on  the  race 
question  as  well  as  on  other  public  questions. 
The  men  of  letters,  the  educators,  the  edu 
cated  business  men,  have  not  counted  appre 
ciably  in  moulding  public  sentiment.  I  said 
editors  along  with  politicians,  but  it  is  not  so 
much  the  editorial  writers  as  it  is  the  mana 
gers  who  direct  what  news  shall  appear,  and 
regulate  the  tones  and  head-lines  of  what  ap 
pears.  It  is  these  and  the  politicians  who  are 
most  responsible  for  public  sentiment.  For 
reasons  that  run  back  to  the  awful  mistakes 
and  hardships  and  outrages  of  the  reconstruc 
tion  period,  the  men  who  deal  professionally 
in  politics  and  public  questions,  and  these  in 
clude  the  newspaper  men,  have  taken  and 
still  continue  to  take,  not  all  of  them  but  a 
large  majority,  an  attitude  of  hostility  and  re 
pression  towards  the  Negro  race.  It  is  nat 
ural  that  it  should  be  so. 

But  is  it  not  time  for  a  better  note  ?  The 
Negro  is  here,  and  so  far  as  human  vision 
reaches,  he  is  here  to  stay,  and  to  stay  mainly 
in  the  South.  He  is  not  only  here,  but  he  is 
improving  wonderfully  in  education  and  in 
the  acquisition  of  property.  There  are  ex 
ceptions.  There  are  in  fact  large  masses  of 


INTRODUCTION  9 

Negroes  who  are  not  improving  in  their  con 
ditions  ;  but  the  figures  of  statistics  are  be 
yond  contradicting  the  fact  that  the  race  as  a 
whole  is  making  forward  strides  away  from 
gross  illiteracy  and  dependent  poverty.  Shall 
the  white  people  wish  it  to  be  so  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  they  should  wish  it  to  be  so.  It 
seems  to  me  that  our  material  prosperity  de 
pends  upon  the  spread  of  intelligence  and 
thrift  among  all  the  people,  even  the  hum 
blest.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  public  health 
demands  this,  because  filth  and  disease  ex 
tend  their  evils  high  and  low.  And  how  dare 
we  say  that  humanity  and  religion  do  not  de 
mand  it?  If  humanity  and  religion  mean 
anything,  they  mean  good  will  to  man  and 
the  application  of  the  eternal  principles  of 
justice  and  righteousness  now  and  always. 

It  does  not  follow  that  any  amount  of  good 
will  and  desire  for  righteous  dealing  does 
away  with  the  fact  of  race.  The  Frenchman 
is  not  a  German,  nor  the  Jew  a  Gentile,  and 
the  difference  of  the  Negro  and  the  white  is 
most  of  all  distinctly  marked.  The  problem 
of  their  living  and  working  side  by  side  in 
the  same  region  is  a  problem,  which  no 
amount  of  optimism  can  deny.  The  problem 
is  a  problem  which  calls  for  neither  a  blind 
and  hopeless  pessimism  nor  a  weak  and  wa- 


10  INTRODUCTION 

tery  optimism.  The  call  is  for  facing  facts, 
and  dealing  with  them  in  the  light  of  wise 
statesmanship  and  the  holy  principles  of 
religious  faith.  Some  advanced  spirits  would 
ignore  the  universal  fact  of  race,  and  in  the 
highest  sense  they  are  right  in  the  sight  of 
law  and  religion  ;  but  in  the  practical  living 
of  our  lives  there  is  no  reason  to  ignore  racial 
any  more  than  other  natural  distinctions  and 
affinities.  There  is  a  segregation  which  is 
perfectly  natural  and  inevitable,  and  will 
surely  take  care  of  itself.  Negroes  as  nat 
urally  and  inevitably  flock  together  as  do  the 
whites,  and  in  my  opinion  their  leaders  op 
pose  any  denial  of  such  natural  segregation, 
and  frown  on  offensive  efforts  to  ignore  the  fact. 
Many  doubtless  question  the  truth  of  this  at 
titude  of  the  Negroes,  but  my  experience 
leads  me  to  the  conviction  that,  however  much 
we  may  think  to  the  contrary,  it  is  essentially 
and  almost  universally  true. 

For  the  white  people  the  main  point  is  that, 
with  all  recognition  of  racial  feelings,  we  are 
bound  to  acknowledge  the  common  rights  of 
humanity.  We  are  bound  to  acknowledge 
that  all  men  are  human,  and  have  human 
rights  and  claims  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness.  Are  we  not,  we  whites  of 
the  South,  also  bound  by  peculiar  claims  both 


INTRODUCTION  11 

of  nearness  and  necessity  ?  The  Negro  served 
us  as  a  slave  ;  in  the  providence  of  God  he  is 
now  by  law  among  us  as  a  man.  For  his 
good,  for  our  own  good,  is  it  not  well  for  us 
to  be  helping  him  on  to  useful  manhood  ? 
Grant  that  in  the  mass  he  is  low  down,  can 
any  low  class,  black  or  white,  lie  in  the  ditch 
and  all  of  us  not  suffer  ? 

It  is  because  Mrs.  Hammond's  book  strikes 
the  good  note  that  it  is  to  be  greatly  welcomed 
at  this  time.  I  believe  that  our  press  and 
public  will  welcome  it  as  a  sincere,  earnest, 
and  able  effort  to  tell  the  difficult  truth.  All 
may  not  agree  with  all  she  says,  but  that  is 
not  so  important  as  to  recognize  that  her 
book  is  one  of  the  utterances  which  are  needed 
at  this  time,  and  that  she  is  seeking  to  help 
us  all,  korth  and  South,  to  think  rightly  on 
this  problem. 

JAMES  H.  DILLARD. 


Contents 

I.  IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY          .  .       17 

II.  THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT     .  .       46 

III.  HOUSES  AND  HOMES        ...      90 

IV.  AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     .  .128 

V.  HUMAN  WRECKAGE        .         .  .152 

VI.  SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION     .  .180 

VII.  THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  Us  .216 

VIII.  THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE         .  .230 


13 


Illustrations 

Bishop  W.  R.  Lambuth  of  M.  E.  Church  (South) 
and  Professor  Gilbert  on  their  900  Mile  Tramp 
in  Africa  .  .  .  Frontispiece 

Facing  page 
Preston  Street  Cooking  School,  Louisville,  Ky.       .       26 

Southern  White  Teachers,  Louisville,  Ky.    .         .       52 

Christmas  Celebrations,  Bethlehem  House,  Nash 
ville  78 

An  Alabama  School  Improvement  League     .         .104 

A  Georgia  County  Superintendent  Visiting  Negro 

School          ....  .104 

Playground  at  Story  Hour,  Louisville  .         .         .130 

Home    of  Atlanta    Negro    Who  Was    His  Own 

Architect  and  Builder     .          .          .          .          .156 

A  Respected  Negro  Doctor         .         .         .         .182 

Paine  College,  Augusta,  Ga 182 

Stillman  Institute,  Tuscaloosa,  Ala.      .         .         .     208 
Poor  Housing  Conditions  in  the  South          .         .     234 


I 

IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY 

THERE  is  nothing  except  love  itself 
which  so  adds  to  the  richness  and 
charm  of  life  as  a  sense  of  wide 
horizons.  One  breathes  in  freedom  under  a 
wide  sky,  catching  the  proper  perspective  for 
life,  and  setting  large  and  small  in  their  true 
relations.  The  burdens  and  hindrances  which 
press  so  close  in  a  narrow,  personal  atmos 
phere  drop  away,  and  dwindle  to  their  true 
size  in  those  far  spaces  which  include  all 
human  life.  We  never  understand  them  till 
we  see  them  so,  set  against  the  background 
of  a  world-experience,  translated  into  terms 
common  to  all  mankind. 

We  were  made  to  be  world-dwellers ;  mem 
bers  of  our  own  small  circle  and  section  of 
country,  loving  and  loyal  to  them  all,  yet 
members  too  of  the  whole  human  brother 
hood  :  of  our  own  race  intensely  ;  yet  just  as 
vitally,  and  more  broadly,  of  the  great  Race 
of  Man. 

The  best  that  can  be  said  of  an  isolated 
17 


J8  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

man,  cut  oft  from  his  wide  human  relations, 
is  that  he  has  a  capacity  for  life.  A  human 
stomach,  or  liver,  or  heart,  may  be  cut  out  of 
the  body  it  belongs  in,  and  yet  be  kept 
"  alive."  It  serves  no  end  of  use  or  beauty, 
poor  unrelated  thing,  and  is  practically  dead 
in  its  cold,  colourless  abiding  place.  Yet  it 
has  a  latent  capacity  for  living,  if  only  it  be 
placed  again  in  vital  connection  with  a  hu 
man  organism,  and  receive  life  from  a  work 
ing  connection  with  the  whole. 

So  many  of  us  lead  cold-storage  lives,  and 
find  them,  naturally,  dull  enough.  So  many 
more  are  vitally  connected  with  but  a  frag 
ment  of  life — our  family  circle,  our  neigh 
bourhood  or  section.  It  is  as  if  a  heart  beat 
in  a  mutilated  body,  legless  or  armless,  per- 
haps  without  sight,  or  deaf  to  the  far,  sweet 
voices  which  call  to  the  freest  and  happiest 
things  in  life. 

We  are  made  far-sighted.  Scientists  tell  us 
that  our  increasing  need  of  glasses  is  due  to 
the  fine,  near-at-hand  work  imposed  by  civ 
ilization  on  eyes  planned  by  nature  for  far- 
sweeping  vision,  for  the  wide  look  which  goes 
from  verge  to  verge  of  the  high-arching  sky. 

It  is  much  that  we  have  acquired  near 
vision ;  we  would  be  savages  still  without  it. 
Close  observation,  thought  of  little  things, 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         19 

the  constructive  spirit  at  work  upon  details 
— these,  inch  by  inch,  through  the  ages,  have 
built  the  road  over  which  the  race  has  ad 
vanced.  Long  sacrifice  has  gone  into  them, 
untold  patience  and  endurance,  the  endless 
drudgery  out  of  which  character  emerges, 
like  a  winged  thing  from  its  cocoon. 

But  we  need  not  lose  the  wide  look,  nor 
work  at  details  knowing  nothing  of  their  re 
lation  to  the  big  world-life  of  man.  How 
could  we  understand  them  so,  or  understand 
ourselves  ?  How  should  we  bear  our  griefs, 
or  meet  our  difficulties,  or  work  in  hope  and 
with  joy  ?  Life  is  such  a  dull  puzzle  to  near 
sighted  folk;  and  so  many  of  those  whose 
lives  touch  theirs  are  sealed  books  to  them, 
uninteresting  because  unknown.  And  igno 
rance  breeds  prejudice  as  a  dunghill  breeds 
flies. 

The  commonest  prejudice  of  all,  perhaps, 
is  the  near-visioned  belief  in  the  superiority 
of  the  people  of  one's  own  small  corner  to  all 
the  rest  of  the  world.  This  frank  and  child 
ish  egotism  is  the  hall-mark  of  the  separated 
life,  whether  lived  by  Anglo-Saxon  or  Pata- 
gonian,  Chinaman  or  American.  We  are 
the  people,  and  wisdom  will  die  with  us! 
That  is  the  world-cry  of  unrelated  man  ;  and 
it  arrogates  a  superiority  which  implies  an- 


20  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

tagonistic  criticism  of  all  dwellers  without 
the  small  charmed  circle  of  the  crier's  under 
standing. 

This  unsympathetic  criticism  betrays  itself 
as  ignorance  by  the  very  fact  of  its  existence  ; 
for  sympathy  cannot  fail  if  only  one  under 
stands  deep  enough.  It  is  the  surface  view, 
always,  which  breeds  antagonism.  If  one 
could  understand  to  the  uttermost  one  would 
inevitably  love  to  the  uttermost :  one's  com 
passions,  like  God's,  would  be  new  every 
morning.  It  is  because  it  is  ordinarily  so 
apart,  cut  off  from  sympathy,  that  criticism 
is  so  often  shorn  of  renovating  force.  Its 
only  chance  for  constructive  service  lies  in 
being  passed  through  the  alembic  of  a  living 
sympathy,  which  alone  can  transmute  the 
inorganic  matter  of  criticism  into  food  for 
assimilation  and  growth. 

For  love,  and  not  intellect,  is  the  vital 
force ;  and  no  man  is  shut  out  by  lack  of 
knowledge  from  the  widest  human  life. 
Things  dim  and  confusing  to  the  mind  are 
clearly  apprehended  by  the  heart.  If  I  ven 
ture  to  offer  this  partial  interpretation  of  the 
life  of  that  corner  of  the  world  which  is  home 
to  me,  it  is  not  because  of  a  belief  that  pe 
culiar  powers  of  any  kind  have  been  given 
to  me,  entitling  me  to  speak  of  my  people, 


HT  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         21 

or  to  them.  It  is  because  I  am  so  truly  one 
of  the  mass,  living  a  small  life  in  a  small 
place,  walled  in  by  circumstances,  like  my 
brothers.  For  any  sharer  of  the  common  lot 
whose  deepest  desire  is  to  walk  in  love 
towards  all  the  world  will  find,  with  the 
years,  a  way  opening  into  the  very  heart  of 
life,  and  will  come  upon  the  reasons  for  many 
of  the  things  which  perplex  us,  for  much  of 
the  wrong  we  bear  and  the  wrong  we  inflict, 
much  which  hedges  us  in,  much  which  makes 
our  brothers  of  a  wider  circle  misunderstand 
and  misjudge  us.  What  is  said  must  be  in 
complete,  and  partly  incorrect.  One  life  may 
mirror  the  race  life ;  yet  the  waves  of  per 
sonality  inevitably  refract  the  reflected  rays. 
It  is  offered  only  for  what  it  is :  an  attempt 
to  translate  some  fragments  of  Southern  life 
into  world-terms ;  to  set  our  sectional  prob 
lems  in  their  wide  human  relations,  and  so  to 
see  them  as  they  really  are. 

When  one  lives  on  a  little  hill,  all  closed  in 
by  mountains,  one  cannot  possibly  see  "  the 
lay  of  the  land  "  ;  and  most  of  us  begin  life 
in  a  place  like  that.  Some  of  us  climb  later 
to  a  mountain  top,  and  live  there  with  wide 
views,  and  heads  near  the  stars.  But  the 
valleys  look  deep  and  dark  from  up  there, 


22  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

the  hills  seem  small,  and  the  mountains  fill 
the  world.  It  is  beautiful  and  splendid,  and 
true,  too :  but  it  is  only  the  half  of  truth — 
that  most  dangerous  of  all  lies — until  the 
mountains,  too,  are  set  in  their  wide  relations. 
When  men  make  them  wings  like  birds,  and 
fly  high  enough,  they  see  something  bigger 
than  the  mountains,  and  that  is  the  earth  to 
which  they  all  belong.  One  can  love  the 
mountains  after  that  without  any  childish 
pride  in  them,  or  childish  scorn  of  the  valleys 
and  hills. 

It  is  so  with  the  races  of  men,  and  with 
that  great,  underlying  humanity  which  binds 
them  all  in  one. 

Long  ago,  when  I  was  young,  I  knew  so 
many  things  that  aren't  so.  I  could  label  all 
the  deeds  of  men  as  fast  as  I  heard  about 
them ;  and  what  was  far  more  amazing,  I 
could  label  the  men  who  did  them.  Label 
ling  deeds  is  really  not  a  very  complicated 
process.  Even  a  child,  for  instance,  can  dis 
tinguish  lies  of  a  fairly  simple  type.  But  to 
put  the  right  label  on  the  man  behind  the  lie 
— that  is  a  different  and  most  difficult  matter. 
He  may  be  a  man  who  would  die  for  the 
truth,  who  daily  sacrifices  for  it  as  he  under 
stands  it  He  may  be  all  hedged  in  with  in- 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         23 

heritances  from  which  he  has  no  way  of  es 
cape — an  example  of  "  invincible  ignorance." 
He  may  be  just  at  the  beginning  of  things  : 
so  many  of  us  tell  lies  because  we  are  not  out 
of  the  kindergarten  yet,  and  life  exists  for  us 
only  in  relation  to  our  own  exuberant  person 
alities.  And  he  may  be — though  it  isn't 
likely — a  deliberate  lover  of  lies.  To  label 
his  deed  is  easy  ;  but  how  shall  one  label 
him? 

Yet  youth  has  a  passion  for  labels.  It  is 
such  a  fascinating  way  of  displaying  one's 
knowledge  to  a  supposedly  admiring  world. 
And  the  more  recently  acquired  our  knowl 
edge  is,  the  more  superficial,  the  more,  in  our 
youth,  it  refreshes  our  souls  to  display  it,  and 
to  criticize  the  little  folk  of  the  family,  who 
are  still  in  those  depths  of  ignorance  so  re 
cently  occupied  by  ourselves  ;  and  to  criticize 
the  old  folks,  whose  knowledge  has  so  fruited 
into  wisdom  that  we  cannot  trace  its  connec 
tion  with  our  own  brand-new  buds  at  all. 

Dispensing  information  concerning  its  own 
shortcomings  to  a  world  that  lies  in  darkness 
is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  natural  and  unforget 
table  joys  of  adolescence.  Nobody  ought  to 
begrudge  it  to  anybody.  It  is  part  of  the 
glamour  of  youth,  and  dear,  at  one  stage  of 
life,  to  every  soul  alive.  As  we  grow  older 


24  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

we  should  remember,  and  smile.  Poor 
young  things,  they  beat  against  the  walls  of 
their  ignorance  so  soon  1 

But  one's  wisdom  must  be  ripe  and  gar 
nered  for  this  understanding.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  of  the  younger  young  folks,  whom 
older  adolescence  is  so  very  hard  upon. 
Their  knowledge  has  achieved  little  more 
than  a  pair  of  cotyledons  as  yet,  perhaps,  and 
wisdom  waits  on  the  years.  But  they  will  be 
as  big  as  the  biggest  soon,  and  know  as 
much,  or  more:  the  younger  ones  "sass 
back." 

That  is  the  way  quarrels  start  in  families, 
as  all  long-suffering  parents  know.  And  I 
think  something  very  like  that  has  happened 
between  the  North  and  the  South — between 
the  big  brother  and  the  little  one.  For  races 
are  men  writ  large,  and  men  are  but  larger 
children. 

Sometimes  we  see  twins  whose  individual 
development  indicates  a  difference  of  years 
between  the  two.  One  had  measles,  perhaps, 
or  scarlet  fever,  "  with  ulterior  consequences," 
as  the  doctors  say,  and  it  has  set  him  back 
a  long  time.  His  digestion  was  impaired, 
and  lack  of  nourishment  has  stunted  his 
growth.  The  other  boy  is  full  fed  and  vig 
orous,  glorying  in  his  strength  as  every  boy 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         25 

must,  and  claiming  the  earth  as  his  birth 
right.  He  wants  to  be  nice  to  his  little 
brother,  but  the  child  can't  live  his  big-boy 
life  at  all ;  and  he's  grouchy,  too — always 
getting  his  feelings  hurt.  It  isn't  the  big 
boy's  fault  he's  no  bigger ;  and  he's  pig 
headed  and  mean,  anyway :  just  see  the  way 
he  picks  on  folks  that  are  weaker  than  he  is ! 

The  war  was  our  measles ;  and  we  have 
hardly  recovered  from  the  ulterior  conse 
quences  yet.  But  our  Northern  twin  kept 
right  on  growing.  He  came  to  adolescence 
first :  and  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  or  so 
he  has  reached  that  later  period  of  youth 
when  one  begins  to  look  soberly  out  upon  an 
ever-widening  world,  and  to  see  a  man's 
work  and  a  man's  responsibilities  shaping 
themselves  from  dreams. 

I  am  sure  that  when  I  was  a  girl  of  fifteen, 
and  first  began  to  explore  the  purlieus  of 
some  Northern  tenements,  hardly  any  of  my 
well-to-do,  educated,  and  entirely  respectable 
and  Christian  acquaintances  cared  anything 
whatever  about  them.  Our  rector  was  a  man 
of  visions  and  dreams,  and  he  stirred  his  peo 
ple  to  open  a  mission  in  what  was  considered 
the  worst  section  of  the  city.  I  was  a  mem 
ber  of  its  regular  working  force  until  my  mar 
riage,  a  few  years  later.  But  to  nobody  con- 


26  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

nected  with  that  mission  did  it  exist  for  any 
purpose  whatever  except  to  save  the  souls  of 
the  tenement-dwellers  out  of  this  world  into 
another  one,  and,  incidentally,  to  show  per 
sonal  kindness,  as  occasion  offered,  to  indi 
viduals  of  the  district.  Nobody  dissented 
from  the  doctrine  that  whatever  was  wrong 
in  the  general  tenement-house  environment 
was  merely  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
the  tenement-dwellers'  inward  and  spiritual 
lack  of  grace  :  if  all  their  souls  could  only  be 
saved  there  would  be  nothing  left  wrong  with 
the  tenements.  There  was  no  sense  of  re 
sponsibility  on  landlords,  on  the  health  au 
thorities,  the  employers  of  labour,  or  the  pub 
lic  at  large.  There  was,  in  every  one  I  was 
thrown  with,  a  vigorous  personal  conscience ; 
strong  personal  sympathy  for  individuals,  who 
were  to  be  got  out  of  the  general  tenement- 
house  mess  if  possible  ;  much  personal  sacri 
fice  ;  and  a  deep  sense  of  personal  obligation 
to  be  individually  kind,  and  to  save  all  the 
souls  that  were  savable.  But  that  was  all. 
There  was  no  glimmering  of  community  con 
sciousness,  of  community  conscience,  or  of 
community  sin.  The  North  was  growing 
fast,  but  it  was  still  a  many-individualed 
North.  It  responded  keenly,  as  growing 
children  will,  to  those  stimuli  which  pene- 


PRESTON    STREET    COOKING    SCHOOL,    LOUIS 
VILLE,  KY. 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         27 

trated  the  area  of  its  awakened  consciousness. 
It  was  eager,  alert,  questioning,  learning,  im 
measurably  more  stimulating  mentally  than 
my  own  beloved  South :  but  it  had  not  yet 
reached  that  stage  of  growth  where  a  social 
conscience  is  possible.  In  the  presence  of 
appalling  social  wrong  there  was  no  response 
to  stimulus  whatever. 

For  myself,  I  was  in  wild  revolt :  but  the 
only  way  out  then  conceivable  to  me  was  for 
the  poor  all  to  get  saved  in  a  hurry,  and  die 
and  go  to  heaven.  God  might  have  known 
what  He  was  about  when  He  made  slum  peo 
ple  :  but  His  reasons  passed  my  understanding. 

Just  then  I  came  upon  some  old  English 
magazines  containing  Miss  Hill's  earlier  arti 
cles  on  housing,  and  God  was  cleared  of  the 
charges  I  had  brought  against  Him.  The 
evils  in  the  tenements  were  man-made ;  and 
if  enough  people  would  do  the  loving  thing 
they  could  be  stopped.  It  was  all  personal 
still — work,  responsibility,  and  righted  wrong ; 
but  saving  souls  included  the  changing  of 
physical  conditions. 

But  good  people  were  not  interested. 
Those  to  whom  I  talked  considered  Miss 
Hill's  ideas  visionary.  They  did  not  believe 
it  possible  to  redeem  slums — only  to  redeem 
some  slum-dwellers'  souls.  I  labelled  them 


28  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

all  on  the  spot,  and  "  stupid  "  was  the  nicest 
word  in  the  list.  The  indictment  grew  longer 
and  blacker  as  the  years  went  on.  I  was 
back  in  the  South  now — the  beautiful,  Chris 
tian  country,  where  there  were  no  slums,  nor 
child  labourers,  nor  sweat-shops,  nor  white 
slaves.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  we  were 
too  young  and  small,  industrially,  to  develop 
these  things  ;  or  that,  like  the  North,  we  had 
to  travel  through  the  country  of  indifference 
to  the  evils  we  did  have  before  we  could  grow 
old  enough  to  care. 

When  Stead  wrote  "If  Christ  Came  to 
Chicago  "  it  was  the  last  straw :  respect  for 
the  North  was  gone.  They  had  money  up 
there ;  they  claimed  to  be  Christians  ;  and 
they  knew.  Yet  nothing  was  done.  The 
imprecatory  Psalms  made  excellent  reading. 

And  then,  out  of  that  vast  welter  of  indif 
ference,  the  emergence  of  a  social  conscience 
in  the  North  !  There  had  been  already,  here 
and  there,  a  point  of  light — a  man  or  a 
woman  flinging  an  isolated  life  against  em 
battled  social  wrongs.  But  now  began  a 
gathering  of  little  groups  ;  here  and  yonder 
one  heard  a  word  caught  up  by  other  voices 
until  it  rose  into  a  cry  :  and  now  the  sound  of 
marching  feet,  and  a  thunder  which  begins 
to  shake  the  world  1 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         29 

The  North  is  a  glorious  big  brother :  and 
as  the  hatred  of  newly-realized  old  wrongs 
grows  within  him,  as  that  which  is  highest  in 
him  is  more  and  more  committing  him  to  the 
doctrine  and  life  of  brotherhood,  it  is  part  of 
the  law  of  youth  and  growth  that  he  should 
have  scant  patience  with  those  who  are  indif 
ferent  to  conditions  which  touch  him  to  the 
quick.  The  one  unforgivable  thing  to  him  is 
that  a  people  should  be  lacking  in  social  con 
science  ;  the  one  inexplicable  audacity,  that 
without  it  they  should  dare  to  call  themselves 
Christians.  Our  brother  of  the  North  is  deep 
in  the  labelling  stage. 

And  we  Southern  folk  ?  If  the  big  broth 
er's  contempt  has  scorched  and  burnt  us, 
have  we  had  no  contempt  for  those  who  are 
younger  than  we  ?  We  had  no  smaller  child 
in  the  immediate  family  to  outlaw  with  labels  ; 
but  providence  has  not  been  altogether  un 
kind.  For  there  is  the  cook's  black  baby  : 
and  it  is  so  long  since  we  were  babies  our 
selves  we  can't  be  expected  to  remember  that 
stage  of  our  growth.  Anyway,  there  is  the 
baby  ;  and  the  labels  show  up  on  him  beauti 
fully. 

The  North,  of  course,  thinks  it  had  a  social 
conscience  fifty  years  ago :  but  that  was  a 


30  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

social  conscience  about  other  people's  sins — 
a  delicate  variety  for  early  forcing  merely,  as 
I  know  by  my  own  experience.  I  once  had 
a  deal  more  social  conscience  about  Northern 
conditions  than  about  those  of  our  Southern 
Negroes,1  though  my  personal  conscience 
about  the  Negroes  was  in  a  flourishing  state. 
Besides,  we  had  a  conscience  about  slavery 
ourselves — a  true  social  conscience  in  the 
germ.  One  of  our  sorest  sore  points  is  our 
Northern  brother's  irritating  inability  to  grasp 
this  fact,  which  is  matter  of  common  knowl 
edge  in  the  South.  Thousands  of  slave 
owners,  like  my  own  parents,  thought  slavery 
wrong,  and  confidently  expected  the  time, 
not  far  distant,  when  the  states  would  them 
selves  abolish  it.  The  South  did  not  fight 
for  slavery.  We  have  seen  the  day,  down 
here,  when  we  would  have  enjoyed  putting 
that  fact  into  our  Northern  brother's  head 
with  a  pile-driver :  and  it  really  does  seem, 
sometimes,  that  no  lesser  agency  will  ever 
get  it  there. 

What  the  South  fought  for  was  its  consti 
tutional  right  to  get  out  of  the  Union  when 
it  no  longer  desired  to  stay  in  it.  We  still 

1  The  word  Negro  is  printed  with  a  capital  throughout  this 
book  in  obedience  to  the  rule  which  requires  all  race-names  to 
begin  with  a  capital  letter:  e.g.,  Indian,  Teuton,  Zulu,  Maori, 
Anglo-Saxon,  Filipino,  etc.,  etc. 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         31 

believe  the  point  was  open  for  debate,  though 
we  have  long  since  ceased  to  regret  that  the 
"  Noes  "  won  it. 

As  for  the  Negroes,  we  were  developing  a  so 
cial  conscience  about  them,  a  healthier  growth, 
perhaps,  though  a  slower  one,  than  the  vica 
rious  conscience  of  the  North.  And  because 
of  that  conscience,  as  well  as  because  of 
natural  human  kindliness,  the  relations  be 
tween  black  and  white  were  in  the  main 
kindly  and  understanding.  I  make  no  ex 
cuse  for  slavery,  nor  for  the  terrible  things 
allowed  by  it :  but  those  things  were  the  ex 
ception  and  not  the  rule.  The  conduct  of 
the  Negroes  during  the  war  proves  that. 
They  are  a  patient,  gentle  folk ;  but  they  are 
far  from  being  superhuman.  If  the  main 
product  of  slave-relations  had  not  been 
kindliness  the  Southern  armies  would  have 
disbanded  to  protect  Southern  homes. 

These  kindly  relations  were  not  shaken  by 
Negro  freedom.  Nobody  held  it  against  the 
Negroes  that  they  were  free.  And  in  the 
white  men's  hearts  kindness  was  reinforced 
by  gratitude  for  the  faithful  care  the  Negroes 
had  given  to  the  women  and  children  of  the 
South.  In  the  ruin  of  the  old  order,  and  the 
desperate  poverty  of  the  new,  readjustment 
would  have  been  slow  and  difficult.  It  would 


32  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

have  been,  doubtless,  many  years  before  the 
polls  would  have  been  open  to  any  consider 
able  number  of  Negroes.  But  there  were 
matters  more  vital  than  votes ;  and  the  read 
justment,  if  slow,  would  have  progressed 
normally,  in  mutual  kindliness  and  patience. 

But  the  North,  with  its  social  conscience 
about  home  conditions  yet  in  embryo,  and 
its  social  conscience  for  other  folks,  like  a 
clock  without  a  pendulum,  working  overtime, 
was  bent  on  growth  by  cataclysm.  If  it 
could  only  have  taken  a  world-look  for  a 
minute  it  would  have  seen  growth  never 
comes  that  way  ;  but  being  so  very  busy  do 
ing  things,  it  had  no  time  to  look.  The 
North  was  a  child  as  yet,  and  lived  in  a 
world  fashioned  out  of  its  own  thoughts.  A 
child  can  take  blocks  of  wood  and  put  them 
into  a  barn  or  a  castle  or  a  ship  :  it  is  as 
easy  as  making  fiat  money.  But  when  the 
blocks  are  men  the  fiat  process  never  works : 
they  will  not  stay  put. 

That  was  our  great  disaster — ours,  and  the 
Negro's  and  the  North's.  Children  ourselves, 
how  should  we  know  the  big,  strong,  over 
bearing  North  was  but  a  child  too  ?  And 
we  had  all  a  child's  keen  sense  of  injustice, 
and  keen  resentment  of  it.  We  thought  the 
North  understood  as  well  as  we  did  what  it 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         33 

was  doing ;  we  even  thought  the  Negro 
understood.  Hate  sprang  full-armoured  in  a 
night.  The  North  called  it  reconstruction : 
it  was  destruction  of  a  very  high  order.  And 
in  all  that  ruin  of  our  dearest  possessions  the 
most  precious,  the  most  necessary  thing  des 
troyed  was  the  old-time  friendship  between 
white  and  black.  It  shrivelled  in  the  fires  of 
hate  ;  and  from  the  ashes  rose  suspicion  and 
injustice,  all  wrong  inflicted  and  sustained, 
to  curse  both  races  yet. 

The  shock  of  those  anarchic  days  is  deep 
in  the  South's  nerves  to  this  day.  Much 
which  the  North  calls  by  a  harsher  name  is 
a  resurgence  of  an  almost  physical  hysteria. 

When  I  was  a  child  my  nurse  put  me  to 
bed,  and  was  supposed  to  sit  by  me  till  I 
went  to  sleep ;  but  she  never  did.  She  was 
a  white  woman,  by  the  way,  and  quite  well 
educated  :  the  older  children's  black  mammy 
had  stayed.  She  had  a  sweetheart  waiting 
in  the  kitchen ;  and  as  soon  as  she  tucked 
me  in  bed  she  put  out  the  light,  and  left  me 
with  the  assurance  that  a  lion  and  a  tiger 
were  under  my  bed,  both  friends  of  hers  ; 
and  if  I  ever  dared  to  get  up  to  call  my 
mother,  or  told  her  I  was  left  alone,  they 
would  claw  me  under  the  bed  by  my  feet 
and  eat  me  up. 


34  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

That  was  fifty  years  ago.  But  to  this  day, 
as  soon  as  the  light  goes  out  my  well-trained 
nerves  try  to  jump  me  into  bed.  When  I 
am  least  thinking  of  it  there  descends  that 
sudden  sense  of  impending  claws. 

We  are  like  that  about  Negro  domination. 
We  know  it  is  a  foolish  fear  ;  yet  we  are  so 
ready  to  start  at  it,  both  as  regards  our 
political  and  our  social  life.  Governor 
Northen,  of  Georgia,  spoke  the  truth  when 
he  declared  that  "  Social  equality  is  a  delu 
sion  set  up  by  the  demagogue"  for  his  own 
ends  :  but  demagogue  or  nurse,  children  are 
easily  frightened.  And  the  South  really  felt 
the  claws  once  ;  and  the  memory  is  deep  in 
every  nerve. 

Beyond  this,  we  have  never  yet  set  the 
Negro  in  his  world-relations,  any  more  than 
the  North  has  so  set  us.  We  have  looked 
upon  our  "  Negro  problem  "  as  a  thing  apart, 
our  strange,  peculiar  burden,  the  like  of  which 
the  world  has  never  seen  ;  and  our  dominat 
ing  thought  about  it  is  that  this  excrescence 
on  Southern  life  shall  never  again  threaten 
the  existence  of  our  civilization. 

That  this  should  be  the  main  aspect  the 
problems  of  our  poorer  classes  present  to  us 
we  owe  partly  to  our  memory  of  claws ;  yet 
largely  too  to  that  irresponsible,  but  inevi- 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         35 

table,  selfishness  of  youth,  a  phenomenon  of 
growth  not  to  be  averted  or  shortened,  which 
sees  all  life  from  a  purely  personal  stand 
point.  We  are  just  beginning,  as  a  people, 
to  touch  that  period  of  later  adolescence 
where  one  glimpses  the  fact  that  a  stand 
point  purely  personal  cannot,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  be  either  kind  or  just,  or  true  to 
our  own  best  selves. 

But  while  we  are  learning  to  admit  this,  to 
ourselves  and  to  others,  there  are  some  things 
our  kinsmen  of  a  wider  circle  should  remem 
ber.  They  should  not  forget  that  the  first 
effect  of  sorrow  is  always  isolation.  After 
sorrow  is  assimilated,  become  food  for  ex 
panding  life,  one  may  emerge  and  take  one's 
place  again,  with  no  trace  of  past  struggle 
except  in  a  deeper  sympathy  with  humanity, 
and  a  broader  understanding  of  it.  But  as 
similation  takes  place  in  the  wilderness ;  and 
life  passes  one  by  at  a  time  like  that,  an  un 
heeded,  alien,  far-off  force. 

For  years  we  lived  in  that  wilderness,  with 
no  thought  nor  care  for  the  wide  world-life 
climbing,  expanding,  outside.  Two  things 
we  had  beside  our  sorrow :  a  struggle  for 
bare  existence  which  absorbed  the  energy  of 
every  fibre ;  and  the  pride  of  a  high-spirited 
people  who  had  been  humbled  in  the  dust. 


36  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Sorrow,  poverty,  and  pride  :  can  any  other 
three  things  produce  such  perfect  insulation 
as  these  ? 

How  should  we  have  a  social  conscience  ? 
No  nation  has  ever  developed  community 
consciousness  while  its  members  were  bat 
tling  for  daily  bread.  A  class  possessed  of  a 
little  leisure  must  be  developed  before  that 
can  appear,  and  must  bear  and  rear  children 
educated  to  a  somewhat  wider  outlook  than 
their  fathers'  bitter  struggle  made  possible. 
The  South  is  barely  at  this  initial  stage. 

We  knew  the  world — the  polite  world — 
pretty  well  before  we  had  the  measles.  We 
were  a  cultivated  folk.  But  the  world  of 
those  days  knew  no  more  about  a  social  con 
science  than  it  knew  about  "  movies,"  or 
automobiles :  it  hadn't  gone  that  far  in  the 
book.  Individuals,  it  is  true,  were  spending 
their  lives,  here  and  there,  in  the  preparation 
of  a  soil  where  later  a  social  conscience 
might  germinate ;  but  they  were  thought  of, 
so  far  as  they  were  thought  of  at  all,  as  in 
dividual  saints  or  individual  cranks.  The 
housing  movement  had  a  few  disciples,  both 
in  France  and  in  England ;  but  they  were  not 
in  the  public  eye.  And  the  voice  of  the  so 
cialist  was  heard  in  the  land  only  to  mark 
him  as  a  fit  subject  for  the  madhouse.  Eng- 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         37 

land,  foremost  of  all  nations,  had  entered, 
half  unwittingly,  upon  her  magnificent  and 
long-to-be-continued  course  of  social  legisla 
tion  ;  and  men  like  Kingsley  and  Maurice 
were  calling  passionately  to  that  void  where 
a  social  conscience  was  soon  to  be.  But 
these  were  but  the  local  affairs  of  a  foreign 
nation,  as  we  and  the  rest  of  the  world  saw 
them.  There  was  nothing  in  America  to 
parallel  the  conditions  which  had  called  their 
protest  forth  ;  and  to  us,  as  to  the  great  mass 
of  the  privileged  everywhere,  nearly  all  of 
human  life  was  foreign. 

It  was  during  the  years  of  our  sojourn  in 
the  wilderness  that  the  privileged  of  earth 
began  to  discover  humanity  as  a  brother 
hood,  and  shot  beyond  us.  But  our  time  of 
separation  is  ending.  We  have  learned  and 
achieved  much  in  these  years.  Our  sympa 
thies  are  broader,  our  minds  more  mature, 
our  hearts  nearer  a  full  awakening.  But  we 
know  very  little  as  yet  about  this  new  old 
world  to  which  we  have  returned.  We 
haven't  learned  about  slums,  or  a  minimum 
wage,  or  mending  criminals  instead  of  man 
ufacturing  them,  or  the  abolition  of  poverty, 
or  the  connection  between  under-nourishment 
and  the  poorhouse.  Even  our  churches  are 
still  inclined,  many  of  them,  to  look  askance 


38  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

at  social  service  as  an  adulteration  of  the 
"  pure  gospel,"  and  to  regard  the  saving  of 
souls  out  of  this  world  into  another  one  as 
the  full  measure  of  Christian  duty.  Some  of 
us  think  if  anybody  says  social  service  and 
Negroes  in  the  same  breath  he  must  mean 
"  social  equality/'  and  reach  for  a  gun  at 
once. 

But  the  time  of  isolation  is  past  with  us. 
We  stand  ready  to  take  our  place  in  the 
world,  and  the  powers  of  youth  and  health 
stir  within  us.  We  are  ready  for  life  in  the 
open,  for  world-connections  and  a  world- 
view. 

What  will  we  do  with  the  Negro,  our  pecul 
iar  and  heavy  burden,  our  puzzle,  almost  our 
despair  ? 

If  we  will  quit  thinking  about  him  as  pe 
culiar  he  will  cease  to  be  either  a  puzzle  or  a 
despair.  Are  we  the  only  folk  on  earth  re 
sponsible  for  a  "  submerged  tenth  "  ?  Bur 
dens  are  peculiar  in  details,  fitted  to  the  in 
dividual  or  the  race  ;  but  in  essence  they  are 
the  same  for  all  mankind,  and  call  for  the 
same  courage,  the  same  sympathy,  the  same 
patience  and  hope  and  strength.  National 
trials  and  difficulties  are  like  personal  sor 
rows  and  hardships  :  when  we  regard  them 
as  peculiar  to  ourselves  they  overwhelm  us. 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         39 

Who  are  we,  to  walk  in  an  unblazed  path,  to 
solve  a  problem  new  in  the  experience  of 
mankind,  to  bear  what  man  has  never  borne 
before  ?  Human  nature  turns  coward  at  the 
mere  thought  of  it,  and  excuses  its  failure 
with  the  plea  that  it  cannot  be  expected  to  be 
stronger  or  wiser  than  all  the  world. 

But  if  the  burden  is  not  peculiar  ?  If  it  is 
our  part  of  a  world-wide  task?  If  every 
where  men  living  under  such  conditions  as 
do  the  majority  of  our  Negroes  are  reacted 
upon  by  their  environment  just  as  the 
Negroes  are  ?  If  we  have  mistakenly  counted 
our  poverty  line  and  our  colour  line  as  one  ? 
If  in  every  nation  long  neglect  of  the  poor 
and  the  ignorant  has  piled  up  just  such  a 
weight  of  weakness,  unthrift,  unreliability  and 
crime  for  a  clearer-visioned  generation  to 
transform  ?  If  men  in  all  lands,  the  best  and 
finest,  are  spending  themselves  to  solve  prob 
lems  such  as  ours  ? 

When  we  see  our  problem  in  that  light — 
see  it  as  it  is,  see  it  in  its  wide  human  rela 
tions — we  will  set  ourselves  to  its  solution. 
We  never  have  been  "quitters  "  in  the  South. 
If  this  be  our  part  of  a  world-task  we  will 
achieve  it. 

And  our  part  of  a  world-task  we  will  find 
it,  as  soon  as  we  compare  our  poorest  with 


40  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

the  poorest  of  other  countries  and  of  all 
races.  Skins  differ  in  colour,  heads  are 
shaped  differently ;  one  man's  mind  runs 
ahead  of  his  sympathies,  perhaps,  and  an 
other  man's  mind  may  creep  while  his  emo 
tional  nature  runs  rampant.  But  under  all 
outward  differences  their  fundamental  hu 
manity  is  as  much  the  same  as  is  the  earth 
under  the  mountain  and  the  hill.  The  same 
things  poison  the  minds  and  bodies  of  white 
and  of  black  alike  ;  the  same  elements  nour 
ish  both.  Honesty,  purity,  love,  self-reliance 
and  self-respect — who  dare  claim  a  monopoly 
of  these  for  themselves?  They  are  human, 
not  racial,  and  to  be  built  up  in  all  races  by 
the  same  processes :  else  Christ  were  a 
dreamer  whom  it  were  madness  to  follow. 

We  need  to  take  the  long  look,  as  well  as 
the  wide  one.  We  say — a  church  paper  in 
the  South  said  it  only  a  few  weeks  ago — that 
in  a  whole  long  fifty  years  of  freedom  the 
Negro  has  advanced  so  little  that  his  condi 
tion  "  is  not  encouraging."  If  that  be  true 
it  is  a  grave  indictment  of  us  white  folks  :  for 
the  Negro  has  these  fifty  years  accepted  the 
conditions  we  have  furnished  for  him,  and 
been  subject  to  us  in  all  things.  He  has  lived 
beside  us,  done  our  work.  If  there  were  no 
encouraging  signs  after  our  management  of 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         41 

him  for  fifty  years,  the  difficulty  might  lie 
with  the  management. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  statement  was  made 
without  a  proper  knowledge  of  facts.  Facts 
show  remarkable  progress,  and  under  diffi 
cult  conditions.  But  what  is  fifty  years  in 
the  development  of  a  race  ? — or  two  hundred 
and  fifty,  when  it  starts  from  savagery  ? 

If  we  "could  go  back  to  the  skin-and-club 
days  of  our  own  puissant  ancestors  we  would 
probably  find  that  they  made  less  progress 
from  savagery  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
than  the  Negroes  have  done  in  that  time. 
Of  course  they  had  less  outside  help :  they 
had  to  evolve  many  of  their  own  forces  of  ad 
vance.  But  for  centuries  no  one  seeing  then 
could  have  dreamed  of  the  world-service  wait 
ing  in  the  ages  ahead  for  those  wild  Britains, 
who  lived  like  beasts  in  their  lairs.  If  we 
could  go  back  and  spend  a  few  months  with 
our  forefathers,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
after  Roman  civilization  first  touched  them, 
we  would  probably  be  glad  enough  to  get 
back  to  our  black  folks  again  :  they  would 
never  be  quite  so  black  any  more. 

The  truth  is,  we  know  nothing  about  what 
Negroes  were  made  for  or  what  they  are 
capable  of,  except  on  the  broad  general 
ground  that  every  human  race  has  human 


42  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

power  of  development  in  some  direction. — 
When  any  one  says  a  thing  like  that  old 
memories  stir  instantly  in  some  of  us,  and  we 
suspect  the  argument  of  carrying  the  sting  of 
social  equality  in  its  tail.  If  we  just  could 
rout  that  old  bogey  out  of  our  imaginations, 
and  turn  our  minds  from  claws !  Nobody 
can  force  on  anybody  associations  undesired. 
And  whatever  Negroes  may  become,  they 
will  certainly  not  be  white  folks.  They  will  be 
just  themselves  ;  something  that  will  balance 
the  white  race  and  the  yellow  and  the  red, 
and  that  will  render  a  racial  service  all  its 
own.  The  higher  they  rise  the  more  Negro 
they  will  be,  the  more  the  tides  of  their  own 
race  life  will  fill  and  satisfy  and  lift  them — 
along  their  own  path.  To  doubt  that  they 
have,  beyond  our  vision,  some  world-service 
yet  to  render,  something  enough  worth  while 
to  justify  their  long  suffering  and  our  own, 
would  be  to  rule  God  out  of  history,  and  to 
put  the  thinking  mind  "  to  permanent  intel 
lectual  confusion." 

I  would  not  appear  to  overlook  the  ex 
istence  of  race  consciousness  and  of  race 
prejudice,  nor  to  blink  the  fact  that  the  latter 
gravely  complicates  our  portion  of  the  world- 
problems  of  the  unprivileged.  Yet  race 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         43 

prejudice,  though  necessarily  local  in  its 
manifestations,  cannot  be  charged  upon  the 
South  alone :  it  is  as  wide  as  humanity,  and 
as  old  as  time.  It  is  not  confined,  in  the 
South;  to  either  race.  A  thing  so  wide 
spread,  so  deeply  human,  so  common  to  all 
races,  should  move  no  man  to  bitterness,  but 
to  patience.  And  we  are  not  denied  the  hope 
that  humanity  will  one  day  rise  above  it. 

Race  consciousness  is  another  matter.  In 
every  highly-developed  branch  of  the  great 
human  race-stocks  there  exists  a  desire  for 
the  integrity  of  that  stock,  an  instinct  against 
amalgamation  with  any  very-distantly-re 
lated  race.  It  is  true  that  with  the  majority 
of  any  such  people  the  instinct  shows  itself 
chiefly  as  race-antagonism  and  race-preju 
dice  ;  yet  it  is  shared  by  those  who  are 
free  from  these  lower  manifestations  of  it. 
Despite  individual  exceptions  this  law  holds 
good,  the  world  around  ;  and  its  violation,  in 
the  marriage  of  individuals  of  widely-differ 
ent  race-stocks,  involves  disastrous  penalties. 

An  instinct  so  wide-spread  and  so  deep  may 
be  safely  credited  to  some  underlying  cause 
in  full  harmony  with  the  great  laws  of  hu 
man  development.  The  instinct  for  racial 
integrity,  with  its  corollary  of  a  separate 
social  life,  will  doubtless  persist  in  a  world 


4:4:  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

from  which  race  prejudice  has  vanished.  If 
one  believed  in  an  Ultimate  Race  which 
would  be  a  blend  of  all  races — a  belief  fre 
quently  adopted  when  one  first  recognizes 
the  real  oneness  of  humanity — one  would 
necessarily  regard  this  desire  for  racial  in 
tegrity  as  but  another  manifestation  of  race 
prejudice,  doomed,  as  such,  to  pass.  But 
the  wider  and  deeper  one's  association  with 
life  the  more  clearly  seen  is  the  law  of  differ 
entiation  in  all  development.  In  the  light  of 
this  law  the  ultimate  physical  oneness  of 
human  races  becomes  as  chimerical  as  the 
ultimate  oneness  of  all  species  of  trees,  or 
the  disappearance  of  the  rich  diversity  of 
winged  forms  of  life  in  favour  of  an  Ultimate 
Bird. 

Life  does  not  develop  towards  uniformity, 
but  towards  richness  of  variety  in  a  unity  of 
beauty  and  service.  Unless  the  Race  of  Man 
contradicts  all  known  laws  of  life  it  will  de 
velop  in  the  same  way ;  and  whether  white, 
or  yellow,  or  black,  they  who  guard  their 
own  racial  integrity,  in  a  spirit  of  brother 
hood  free  from  all  other-racial  scorn,  will 
most  truly  serve  the  Race  to  which  all  be 
long.  What  we  white  people  need  to  lay 
aside  is  not  our  care  for  racial  separateness, 
but  our  prejudice.  The  black  race  needs,  in 


IN  TERMS  OF  HUMANITY         45 

aspiring  to  the  fullest  possible  development, 
to  foster  a  fuller  faith  in  its  own  blood,  and 
in  the  world'  s  need  for  some  service  which 
it,  and  it  alone,  can  render  in  richest  measure 
to  the  great  Brotherhood  of  Man. 


II 

THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT 

IN  a  newspaper  of  a  Southern  city  I  read 
recently  a  report  of  the  court  proceed 
ings  of  the  day  before.  The  first  case 
tried  was  that  of  a  white  man,  some  thirty 
years  of  age,  who  had  violated  the  white 
slave  law.  He  had  abducted  a  girl  of  six 
teen  from  her  home,  and  was  using  her  for 
immoral  gain.  The  judge,  in  sentencing 
him,  had  dwelt  at  length  on  the  preciousness 
of  that  of  which  the  child  had  been  robbed ; 
but  added  that  he  had  decided  to  make  the 
sentence  a  light  one,  because  the  law  was 
new,  and  not  very  widely  understood.  He 
gave  the  man  one  year  in  prison. 

The  next  case,  according  to  the  paper,  was 
that  of  a  Negro  boy  of  twenty.  He  had 
stolen  eleven  dollars  and  forty-six  cents. 
The  evidence  was  convincing  ;  but  the  judge 
said  he  would  give  him  also  a  light  sentence. 
His  reason  was  not,  as  it  might  have  been, 
that  the  law  against  the  offense  was  new.  It 
is  just  as  new  as  the  other  one,  having  been 
formally  promulgated  at  the  same  time,  on  a 
46 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      47 

mountain  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula.  But  the 
judge's  reason  for  mercy,  he  said,  was  that 
the  evidence  clearly  showed  that  the  boy  had 
never  had  any  chance  in  life.  His  parents 
had  both  died  in  his  infancy,  and  nobody  else 
had  wanted  him.  He  had  grown  up,  no  one 
knew  how,  beaten  from  pillar  to  post,  un- 
cared  for,  untaught.  So  the  judge  decided 
on  mercy,  and  gave  him  three  years. 

I  do  not  at  this  time  raise  the  question  of 
the  wisdom  of  time -sentences,  in  these  or  in 
any  cases ;  that  will  be  taken  up  later.  The 
point  is  that  the  value  of  a  child's  honour  and 
a  mother's  happiness,  when  stolen  by  a  ma 
ture  white  man,  was  assessed  at  one  year  in 
prison ;  and  the  value  of  eleven  dollars  and 
forty-six  cents,  when  stolen  by  a  young 
Negro  waif,  was  assessed  at  three  years  in  the 
same  place.  The  judge  is  a  man  who  has,  I 
believe,  a  sincere  desire  correctly  to  adminis 
ter  the  law  in  his  high  office  ;  and  law  and 
justice  are  to  him  synonymous  words.  He 
thinks  in  terms  of  law,  not  in  terms  of  hu 
manity. 

Some  months  ago  I  was  visiting  friends 
when  a  son  of  the  house,  a  university  student, 
came  in  with  a  story  of  a  morning  spent  in 
the  city  court.  Some  case  was  pending  in 
which  the  students  were  interested,  and  a 


4:8  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

body  of  them  had  been  in  attendance  all  the 
morning.  A  number  of  cases  concerning 
Negroes  had  been  disposed  of  before  theirs 
was  called. 

"  I  tell  you,"  he  said,  summing  the  morn 
ing  up,  "  a  *  nigger '  stands  no  show  in  our 
courts." 

He  was  evidently  shocked  by  the  fact,  and 
so  was  the  family.  They  are  people  far  above 
the  average  in  intelligence,  in  loving-kind 
ness,  in  culture,  in  self-sacrificing  personal 
service  to  the  individual  poor,  both  white  and 
black.  But  courts  of  law  were  without  the 
pale  of  their  personal  responsibility  :  their 
personal  conscience,  quick  and  beautifully  re 
sponsive  in  any  individual  matter,  merely 
condemned  this  wrong  and  laid  it  aside. 
There  was  no  sign  of  a  social  consciousness  ; 
of  any  sense  that  if  anybody  stood  no  show 
in  their  courts  it  was  a  community  sin,  for 
which  all  members  of  the  community  were  re 
sponsible,  and  which  the  community  could 
change  if  it  would.  They  did  not  see  that 
they  had  any  duty  in  arousing  the  commu 
nity  to  consciousness  of  social  wrong.  If  any 
individual  one  of  the  many  Negroes  known 
to  them  had  been  brought  before  the  court 
that  morning,  they  would  have  done  just  what 
I  have  done  in  days  when  I  had  no  more  social 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      49 

conscience  about  Negroes  than  they  had : 
they  would  have  seen  him,  or  his  family,  be 
forehand,  and  asked  some  good  lawyer,  a 
personal  friend  probably,  to  see  that  the 
Negro  ,had  justice.  The  lawyer,  who  would 
probably  not  be  in  the  habit  of  taking  such 
cases,  would  do  so  cheerfully  and  without 
remuneration,  partly  to  oblige  a  lady,  but 
largely  too  for  the  sake  of  protecting  a  Negro 
who  had  become  individually  known  to  him, 
and  who  therefore  appealed  to  his  personal 
conscience. 

Cases  of  both  kinds  are  common  all  over 
the  South.  A  Negro  who  gets  in  jail  will 
send  for  "  his  white  folks  "  first  thing,  if  he  is 
fortunate  enough  to  have  any.  And  they 
come,  man  or  woman  as  the  case  may  be, 
practically  without  fail.  And  often,  when 
they  come,  the  Negro  gets  less  than  justiceln 
the  courts  in  the  sense  that  he  is  let  off  with 
a  reprimand  or  a  small  fine  when  the  law 
would  call  for  something  more.  But  none  of 
us  are  sorry  for  that,  for  our  penal  laws,  like 
those  of  most  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  are 
archaic  survivals,  and  recognize  no  relation 
between  cause  and  effect  where  crime  is  con 
cerned. 

But  the  very  great  majority  of  Negroes  who 
come  before  the  courts  have  no  white  folks  to 


50  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

send  to.  Our  criminals,  like  the  criminals  of 
every  country,  come  chiefly  from  the  economic 
class  which  lives  on,  or  over,  the  poverty  line 
— from  our  "  submerged  tenth/'  Nearly  all 
those  in  this  economic  class  in  the  South  are 
Negroes — a  fact  which  has  resulted  in  our 
confusing  the  poverty  line  with  the  colour 
line,  and  charging  Negroes  racially  with  sins 
and  tendencies  which  belong,  the  world  over, 
to  any  race  living  in  their  economic  condi 
tion.  But  it  is  just  the  Negroes  who  belong 
in  this  economic  class,  these  Negroes  who 
form  our  submerged  tenth,  and  who  furnish 
the  most  of  our  criminal  supply,  whom  we 
white  people  do  not  know,  and  who  conse 
quently  have  no  white  folks  to  send  to,  to  see 
that  they  are  protected  in  the  courts. — Oh, 
there  is  the  Negro  problem,  and  the  solution 
of  it !  The  poorest,  the  most  ignorant,  the 
ones  least  able  to  resist  temptation,  the  folk 
unhelped,  untaught,  who  are  born  in  squalor, 
who  live  in  ignorance  and  in  want  of  all 
things  necessary  for  useful,  innocent,  happy 
lives — they  do  not  know  us,  nor  we  them  ! 
There  is  no  human  bond  of  fellowship  between 
our  full  lives  and  their  empty  ones  ;  no  mak 
ing  of  straight  paths  for  these  stumbling  feet, 
no  service  of  the  outcast  by  those  who  are 
lords  of  all ! 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      51 

In  that  one  sense  the  Negro  problem  is  pe 
culiar.  Otherwise  it  is  an  integral  part  of 
the  world-problem  of  strength  and  weakness 
dwelling  side  by  side,  with  the  great  Law 
overhead  laying  upon  them  both  the  neces 
sity  of  working  out  a  state  of  civilization 
which  shall  embody  the  spirit  of  human 
brotherhood,  and  secure  justice  and  oppor 
tunity  for  all.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  in 
that.  The  call  to  this  duty  is  world-wide : 
the  obligation  we  share  with  all  the  privileged 
of  •  earth.  The  peculiar  thing  is  that  we 
alone,  of  all  the  privileged  of  Christendom, 
have  no  wide-spread  sense  of  obligation  to 
achieve  this  task.  We  even,  many  of  us, 
look  on  the  handful  who  respond  to  this 
world-call  by  service  to  our  neediest  as  peo 
ple  half  disgraced,  who  dishonour  their  high 
heritage  in  going  where  Christ  would  go, 
and  in  doing  His  will  with  all  He  has  left  on 
earth  to  do  it — human  feet  and  hands  and 
hearts.  That  is  peculiar. 

For  we  honour  the  privileged  of  other 
places  who  do  this  very  thing.  Any  of  us 
would  have  been  proud  to  know  Tolstoi,  not 
just  as  a  writer  of  books,  but  as  a  great  man 
willing  to  forego  greatness,  and  to  give  his 
life  to  ignorance  and  squalor  and  want.  We 
are  proud  of  Miss  Jane  Addams,  formerly  of 


52  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Chicago,  Illinois,  but  now  this  long  time  of 
the  United  States  of  America,  North  and 
South.  But  a  Jane  Addams  among  the  Ne 
groes — the  slum  Negroes,  folk  of  that  very 
economic  class  for  which  she  spends  herself 

at  Hull  House !    There  is  no  more  to  be 

said. 

Ah,  but  there  is !  We  are  only  at  that 
border-line  of  adolescence  where  a  social 
conscience  may  stir  in  the  heart's  soil,  and 
begin  to  reach  upward  to  the  light.  We  will 
know  our  slum  folk  yet.  And  that  knowl 
edge  will  be  part  of  the  basis  of  the  adjust 
ment  which  is  to  come. 

A  recent  incident  told  me  by  a  friend,  one 
of  the  chief  actors  in  it,  throws  light  on  pres 
ent  Southern  conditions  at  several  points. 

This  friend  lives  alone  with  her  servants  on 
her  old  family  plantation,  a  few  miles  from 
one  of  our  greatest  cities.  Her  cook's  hus 
band,  a  trifling  Negro  and  a  steady  drinker, 
had  hired  himself  to  a  near-by  farmer  for 
whom  the  whites  of  the  neighbourhood  had 
scant  respect.  The  man  kept  a  plantation 
store  where  his  "  hands  "  could  obtain  provi 
sions  and  whiskey  as  advances  on  their 
wages,  settling  with  their  employer  at  the 
end  of  the  week,  or  the  year.  Until  poor 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      53 

folk  learn  cooperative  buying,  after  the  Eng 
lish  and  continental  method,  these  master- 
owned  stores  are  a  necessity  in  the  South,  as 
they  are  elsewhere ;  and  here,  as  in  Western 
lumber  camps  or  Eastern  mines  and  mills, 
monopoly  tempts  some  to  extortion.  In  such 
cases  the  Negroes  are  never  out  of  debt,  from 
year  to  year,  their  own  fondness  for  whiskey 
being  often  as  potent  a  reason  for  that  fact 
as  the  storekeeper's  greed.  The  storekeeper 
usually  furnishes  the  whiskey  which  keeps 
them  such  unremunerative  labourers  ;  but  his 
profit  on  the  whiskey  makes  up  for  that. 

The  farmer  in  question  appears  to  have 
been  an  employer  of  this  type ;  and  the  Ne 
gro,  whose  poor  wages  fully  paid  for  the 
work  he  did,  was  soon  deep  in  debt.  He  de 
cided  to  hire  "out  somewhere  else,  and  his 
contract  troubled  him  no  whit.  He  told  his 
second  employer  of  his  debt  to  the  first ;  and 
the  man,  according  to  custom,  agreed  to 
stand  for  it  to  the  creditor  by  withholding 
part  of  the  Negro's  wages  while  in  his  em 
ploy,  and  paying  it  on  the  debt.  Ordinarily 
this  would  have  released  the  Negro,  as  few 
people  try  to  get  work  out  of  one,  contract  or 
no  contract,  who  is  unwilling  to  give  it.  But 
the  first  farmer  needed  his  "  hand,"  and  had, 
apparently,  not  even  a  personal  conscience, 


54  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

or  a  rudimentary  respeoi  for  law.  So  he 
kidnapped  the  Negro  on  his  way  to  his  new 
employer,  gave  him  a  hard  beating,  and  set 
him  to  work  on  his  own  farm,  threatening 
him,  the  Negro  said,  with  far  worse  if  he  left 
the  place  again  before  the  year  was  out.  He 
even  kept  him  at  night  until  my  friend,  find 
ing  where  he  was,  sent  the  farmer  orders  to 
allow  the  man  to  come  home  every  night  as 
soon  as  his  day's  work  was  done. 

She  is  a  frail  little  body,  but  accustomed  to 
being  obeyed ;  and  the  farmer  did  as  he  was 
bid.  The  Negro,  however,  shirked  his  work, 
and  once  more  roused  his  employer's  ire. 
This  time  the  farmer  came  to  the  cabin  in  my 
friend's  yard  one  night  after  she  had  retired. 
He  brought  a  rope  with  him,  without  ex 
pounding  his  reason  therefor,  and  ordered 
the  Negro  to  get  up  and  come  with  him. 
My  friend  went  out  and  delivered,  as  her  ul 
timatum,  a  demand  that  the  Negro  be  form 
ally  released  from  his  contract  on  the  spot. 
Her  simple  fearlessness  forced  the  white 
man's  consent ;  and  she  gave  him,  in  return, 
her  personal  check  for  eighty  dollars — the 
amount  claimed  on  the  Negro's  indebtedness. 

The  story  shows  the  lengths  to  which  the 
Southern  personal  conscience  will  go  in  be 
friending  even  a  trifling  Negro  ;  and  the  fact 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT       55 

that  everybody  settled  down  in  peace  as 
soon  as  the  white  man  let  the  black  one 
alone  throws  light  on  the  state  of  our  social 
consciousness.  It  is  true  my  friend  said  the 
white  man  was  practically  ostracized  by  his 
own  race ;  but  that  fact  was  the  aggregate 
result  of  the  action  of  many  individuals, 
rather  than  the  action  of  a  community  with 
a  sense  of  community  responsibility  to  up 
hold  law. 

The  story  naturally  brings  up  the  question 
of  peonage,  which  is  a  logical  outcome  of 
our  attitude  to  the  Negroes  since  the  de 
structive  days  of  "  reconstruction." 

Country  Negroes  of  the  better  type,  hard 
working,  honest  and  thrifty,  are  pretty  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  own  their  own  farms  and 
be  their  own  masters.  Negro  ownership  of 
Southern  farm  lands  increased  one  hundred 
and  fifty  per  cent,  between  1900  and  1910 — 
clear  proof  that  the  race  is  advancing  rapidly, 
no  matter  how  much  that  is  undesirable  may 
remain  for  future  elimination.  Proof,  also, 
that  notwithstanding  mob  barbarities  and 
much  unjust  discrimination,  Southern  whites 
are  better  neighbours  for  black  folk  than 
some  of  our  Northern  brothers  fear. 

By  this  steady  promotion  of  the  best  Negro 
tenants  and  labourers  into  the  class  of  land- 


56  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

owners,  those  left  available  for  labour  on 
white  farms  tend  constantly  to  a  lower  level 
of  character  and  efficiency.  It  would  be 
hard  to  exaggerate  the  shiftlessness  and  un 
reliability  of  many  of  them.  The  farmer  who 
has  employed  them  by  the  year  may  find 
himself  deserted  at  the  most  critical  period, 
and  his  year's  work  little  more  than  a  dis 
aster.  It  is  for  protection  against  this  danger 
that  a  number  of  men  have  resorted  to  the 
expedient  of  keeping  the  labourers  forever 
in  their  debt,  and,  by  agreement  with  other 
farmers,  preventing  their  getting  employ 
ment  elsewhere  until  that  impossible  time 
when  their  debt  shall  have  been  cancelled. 

It  is  a  surface  remedy,  which  penetrates 
the  skin  of  the  difficulty  only  to  set  up  in 
flammation.  The  basis  of  adjustment  here 
necessitates  an  entire  readjustment  of  thought 
and  action,  on  the  part  of  the  whites,  to  the 
country  Negro  and  his  needs. 

The  two  great  assets  of  any  country  are 
the  land  and  the  people  ;  and  the  people 
necessarily  include  those  engaged  in  the 
basal  industry  of  agriculture.  The  land  pro 
duces  increasingly  as  the  people  who  till  it 
gain  in  health,  in  morals,  in  intelligence,  in 
the  freedom  and  joy  of  life.  It  grows  barren 
as  they  are  debased.  No  man,  however  in- 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      57 

telligent  himself,  can  make  a  free  man's  crop 
with  peon  labour.  For  many  years  the  South 
squandered  the  fertility  of  her  fields.  We 
are  learning  of  late  years,  slowly  and  pain 
fully,  to  build  up  the  impoverished  soil,  and 
restore  it  to  its  former  richness.  But  we 
have  overlooked  the  other  half  of  the  prob 
lem — the  squandered  fertility  of  labour. 
Until  we  build  up  the  worker  the  material 
on  which  his  work  is  spent  will  never  yield 
its  normal  return.  The  houses  of  very  many 
farm  labourers  are  more  than  enough  to  sap 
their  vitality,  to  destroy  ambition  and  self- 
respect,  and  to  foster  immorality  and  disease. 
Conditions  like  these  filch  from  the  com 
munity  its  capital  of  human  productiveness. 

Added  to  this  is  our  habitual  neglect  of 
the  farm-hand's  recreational  life — the  danger- 
place  of  all  people  of  all  races  and  all  ages 
whose  inward  resources  are  limited,  and 
whose  power  of  self-control  is  not  highly 
developed. 

Even  a  locomotive,  a  thing  all  steel  and 
brass,  has  to  have  its  periods  of  cared-for 
rest — its  recreational  life — if  it  is  to  live  out 
in  usefulness  the  normal  lifetime  of  such  an 
engine  :  and  no  man,  of  any  race,  will  or 
can  do  first-class  work  if  he  is  regarded  as  a 
machine  while  at  work,  and  as  a  nonentity 


58  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

when  his  work-hours  end.  Drunkenness 
and  immorality  are  the  only  resources  of 
many  of  our  farm-hands  when  not  at  work 
in  the  field.  Peonage  is  no  cure  for  debase 
ment  like  this. 

The  Negroes  need  to  be  built  up,  like  the 
soil.  In  cities  and  factories  we  are  finding 
that  it  pays,  in  dollars  and  cents,  to  care  for 
"the  [white]  human  end  of  the  machine." 
It  will  pay  in  the  country,  too,  and  when  the 
human  end  is  black.  Christ's  law  of  brother 
hood  is  universal  in  its  working,  or  it  is  no 
law  at  all.  A  Negro  of  this  class,  given  a 
decent  house  and  let  alone  in  it,  would  soon 
bring  it  to  the  level  of  his  former  habitation. 
But  if  with  the  house  he  were  given  a  friend 
— who  according  to  Emerson's  fine  definition 
is  "  one  who  makes  us  do  what  we  can"; 
if  he  were  helped  to  start  a  chicken-yard 
of  his  own  on  intelligent  principles,  or  a 
garden-patch ;  if  the  educational  methods  so 
successful  at  some  points  in  the  rural  South 
were  universally  applied,  relating  the  chil 
dren  rationally  and  happily  to  the  land ;  if 
the  schoolhouses  were  secured  as  social  cen 
tres  for  older  Negroes,  and  the  better  classes 
of  coloured  people  were  encouraged  to  co 
operate  in  the  movement ;  if  the  white  men 
of  the  neighbourhood,  farmers,  pastors,  school- 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      59 

teachers  and  doctors,  met  them  there  occa 
sionally  to  lecture  on  matters  of  community 
interest,  and  also  to  give  them  some  real  out 
look  in  life,  some  glimpse  of  the  wide  rela 
tions  of  .their  narrow  toil ;  if  the  white  people 
would  look  into  their  religious  life  a  little  and 
do  what  so  many  white  people  did  before  the 
war — superintend  their  Sunday-schools  and 
teach  their  Bible  classes  ;  if  these  simple  and 
entirely  possible  things  were  done,  the  la 
bourer  would  be  built  up  along  with  the  soil, 
and  peonage  would  be  seen  for  what  it  is — 
the  device  of  selfish  ignorance  for  meeting  a 
situation  which  is  caused  by  our  own  neglect 
of  our  poor,  and  is  to  be  controlled  only  by 
service  in  a  spirit  of  brotherhood. 

It  would  not  be  as  easy  to  do  as  to  read 
about,  of  course.  There  would  be  discour 
agement  and  failures.  There  always  are 
when  a  thing  is  really  worth  doing.  And 
we  must  expect,  moreover,  to  pay  a  heavy 
premium  for  our  fifty  years1  neglect  of  this 
simple  duty  to  our  country  poor.  The  Ne 
groes  do  not  love  us  as  much  as  they  did 
fifty  years  ago,  nor  trust  us  as  they  did.  No 
Southern  white  can  turn  in  sympathy  to  the 
service  of  the  poorer  Negroes  without  being 
often  startled,  and  sometimes  sharply  hurt, 
by  suspicions  and  mistrusts  which  peer  at. 


60  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

him  from  hidden  places,  and  sometimes 
threaten  to  bar  his  way.  But  that  is  our  her 
itage  from  our  own  past,  and  it  only  empha 
sizes  the  danger  of  further  neglect.  It  may 
go  against  our  pride  to  recognize  the  fact, 
but  we  white  people,  if  we  really  win  our  way 
with  the  mass  of  the  Negroes,  and  pay  in 
honour  our  share  of  the  world-debt  of  the 
strong  to  the  weak,  must  live  down  much  of 
the  record  of  our  last  fifty  years. 

But  the  lower  class  of  Negroes,  whether  in 
city  or  country,  do  not  present  the  only,  nor, 
I  often  think,  the  most  serious  aspect  of  our 
Negro  problem,  so  called.  We  have  many 
classes  of  whites  in  the  South,  the  lowest  of 
which  are  little,  if  any,  above  the  lower  Ne 
groes  in  education  or  morality.  This  class  is 
not  a  large  one,  but  it  is  widely  scattered  ;  and 
it  is  the  most  unstable  element  in  our  civili 
zation.  It  is  the  nitrogen  of  the  South,  ready 
at  a  touch  to  slip  its  peaceful  combinations, 
and  in  the  ensuing  explosion  to  rend  the 
social  fabric  in  every  direction.  It  is  the 
storm-centre  of  our  race-prejudices,  and  gen 
erates  many  a  cyclone  which  cuts  a  broad 
swath  through  much  that  the  South  cher 
ishes.  I  know  of  no  solution  for  this  white 
side  of  our  "  Negro  problem  "  but  the  one  to 
be  applied  to  the  black  side  also — the  gradual 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      61 

upbuilding  of  character  by  training  and  per 
sonal  service,  and  above  all  by  the  example 
of  just  living  in  every  relation  of  life. 

But  control  of  a  situation  need  not  wait  on 
the  solution  of  its  problems.  The  existence 
of  this  dangerous  white  class  is  no  excuse  for 
the  deeds  its  members  are  permitted  to  do ; 
it  but  constitutes  our  duty  and  our  reproach. 
There  are  a  hundred  law-abiding  Southern 
ers — oh,  far,  far  more  ! — to  every  one  of  these 
lawless  firebrands ;  yet  individualistic  as  we 
are,  unorganized  by  a  social  consciousness, 
half  a  dozen  of  them  can  sway  the  weak,  the 
excitable,  the  unformed  among  us,  can  fire 
the  mob  spirit,  and  lay  the  honour  of  thou 
sands  in  the  dust. 

We  have  lately  had,  in  one  Southern  state, 
an  extreme  instance  of  this  kind.  A  pecul 
iarly  atrocious  murder  had  been  committed 
by  five  Negroes,  two  of  whom  were  lynched, 
the  remaining  three  being  hung  by  process 
of  law.  Some  lawless  white  men,  evidently 
too  poor  themselves  to  need  the  Negro's 
labour,  then  undertook  to  drive  all  Negroes 
from  the  country.  Notice  was  served  on  the 
white  people,  in  city  and  country,  that  dire 
and  summary  punishment  would  be  meted 
out  to  all  whites  employing  Negroes  in  any 
capacity  after  a  certain  date.  The  Negroes 


62  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

were  warned  that  working  for  white  people 
meant  death,  and  were  ordered  to  leave  the 
country  at  once.  A  friend  of  mine  who  lives 
in  the  county  town,  which  numbers  several 
thousand  inhabitants,  told  me  the  Negroes 
were  pitiful  to  see.  They  went  out  in  droves, 
young  and  old,  often  in  rickety  little  wagons 
piled  high  with  household  goods ;  went  out, 
not  knowing  whither,  and  leaving  gardens 
behind  them,  and  often  homes  of  their  own. 

And  the  white  people — the  law-abiding 
majority  of  the  population  ?  They  were 
thoroughly  indignant  from  a  personal,  but 
not  from  a  community  standpoint.  They 
condemned  the  outrage  publicly,  as  individ 
uals  ;  and  as  individuals  they  each  protected 
those  Negroes  personally  known  to  them. 
Men  carried  pistols  to  protect  their  Negro 
chauffeurs,  none  of  whom  were  molested  as 
soon  as  that  fact  became  known.  Servants 
came  to  the  white  people's  premises  to  sleep, 
and  brought  their  relatives  with  them.  It 
was  the  Negroes  who  had  no  "  white  folks  " 
who  suffered.  Finally  the  matter  dropped 
out  of  the  newspapers.  A  year  later  two  of 
the  Negroes  ventured  back  to  their  homes, 
which  were  promptly  dynamited,  though 
fortunately  without  loss  of  life.  The  two 
houses,  the  papers  stated,  were  owned  by 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      63 

white  men ;  and  the  governor  offered  five 
hundred  dollars  reward  for  the  perpetrators  of 
this  latest  crime.  They  have  not  yet,  how 
ever,  been  apprehended. 

The  papers  of  the  state,  like  the  whites  of 
the  outraged  community,  were  outspoken  in 
condemnation  of  these  barbarous  proceed 
ings  ;  yet  there  was  no  community  conscience 
to  weld  the  law-abiding  majority  of  town  or 
state  into  one  strong  will,  fired  with  a  determi 
nation  to  stop  a  hideous  injustice,  or  to  give 
the  weak  the  protection  of  law  which  was 
their  due,  instead  of  the  haphazard  personal 
safeguards  afforded  by  the  circumstance  of 
acquaintance  with  some  white  person. 

It  is  scarcely  a  step  from  deeds  like  this  to 
the  murder,  by  mob  law,  of  human  beings. 
To  a  thinking  mind  there  is  nothing  so  sin 
ister  in  our  Southern  life  as  the  swift  debauch 
ing  of  many  of  our  people  through  yielding 
to  the  mob  spirit.  Time  was  when  a  Negro 
was  lynched  for  one  crime  only  ;  and  the  fear 
ful  provocation  is  still  adduced,  at  least  as  the 
reason,  if  not  as  the  excuse,  for  this  savagery 
among  us.  But  this  lawless  element  has 
long  since  fallen  below  the  point  where  such 
offense  is  necessary  to  set  them  baying  for 
some  Negro's  life  like  bloodhounds  on  a  trail. 
The  curse  of  their  own  sins  is  upon  them,  and 


64:  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

they  drop  nearer  the  beast's  level  every 
year. 

But  we  of  the  law-abiding  majority  cannot 
lay  on  their  shoulders  our  part  of  a  commu 
nity  sin.  If  they  do  the  deed,  we,  who  could 
prevent  it,  permit  them.  There  are,  however, 
signs  of  a  wide  awakening.  The  individual 
consciences  of  the  South  are  yearly  more 
deeply  stirred  by  these  outrages.  The  out 
spoken  condemnation  of  a  few  men  and  news 
papers,  years  ago,  is  the  common  attitude 
to-day.  And  more  than  that,  far  more,  is  the 
stirring,  by  more  signs  than  one,  of  a  true 
community  conscience  at  this  most  vital 
point.  A  few  weeks  ago  the  citizens  of  a 
town  just  disgraced  by  mob  violence  met 
in  public  assembly,  confessed  openly  their 
sense  of  community  shame,  and  pledged 
themselves  as  a  people  to  see  that  the  law 
was  upheld  in  their  midst  henceforth.  When 
the  real  South,  the  law-abiding  majority, 
catches  the  contagion  of  that  social  conscious 
ness  mobs  will  be  heard  of  among  us  no 
more. 

A  law  has  been  proposed  by  some  South 
ern  man,  whose  name  I  am  unable  to  trace, 
which  would  go  far  towards  checking  mob 
violence.  It  would  automatically  remove 
from  office  any  sheriff  who  failed  to  protect  a 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      65 

prisoner  in  his  charge,  and  would  render  him 
ineligible  for  reelection  ;  and  it  would  make 
the  county  liable  for  damages  to  the  family 
of  the  murdered  man.  It  would,  in  the 
writer's  opinion,  be  wise  to  add  to  these  pro 
visions  a  requirement  that  the  county  tax  for 
education  be  largely  increased  for  a  term  of 
years  following  such  a  crime. 

It  was  with  the  deepest  thankfulness  that  I 
sat  in  a  body  of  Southern  women,  gathered 
in  Birmingham  last  April,  when  resolutions 
against  lynching  were  brought  in  and  unani 
mously  passed.  The  overwhelming  majority 
of  Southern  women  have  always  repudiated 
the  need  of  mob-murder  for  their  protection  ; 
but  it  marks  a  great  advance  towards  social 
consciousness  when  an  organization  repre 
senting  over  two  hundred  thousand  Southern 
white  women  delivers  a  public  protest  against 
it.  The  occasion  was  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  Woman's  Missionary  Council  of  the  M.  E. 
Church,  South.  The  resolutions  "  deplore 
the  demoralizing  influence  of  mob  violence 
upon  communities,  and  especially  upon  the 
youth  of  both  races,  who  are  thereby  incited 
to  a  contempt  of  law  resulting  in  moral  de 
generacy  and  the  overthrow  of  justice." 
They  state  "  that,  as  women  engaged  in  Chris 
tian  social  service  for  the  full  redemption  of 


66  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

our  social  order,  we  do  protest,  in  the  name 
of  outraged  justice,  against  the  savagery  of 
lynching  ; "  and  "  call  upon  lawmakers  and 
enforcers  of  law,  and  upon  all  who  value  jus 
tice  and  righteousness,  to  recognize  their 
duty  to  the  law,  and  to  the  criminal  classes. 
We  appeal  to  them  to  arouse  public  opinion 
against  mob  violence,  and  to  enforce  the  law 
against  those  who  defy  it."  The  resolutions 
end  by  pledging  the  women  "  to  increasing 
prayer  and  effort  in  behalf  of  those  classes, 
the  very  environment  of  whose  lives  breeds 
crime." 

Here  is  one  vigorous  development  of  so 
cial  conscience  in  the  South  as  regards  the 
Negro.  The  Sociological  Congress  showed 
others.  It  is  as  contagious,  thank  heaven,  as 
tuberculosis  itself,  once  the  patient's  condi 
tion  is  ripe  for  it ;  and  when  we  break  out 
with  it,  as  we  presently  shall,  we  shall  have  a 
notable  case.  We  never  have  done  things 
by  halves. 

But  the  evil  effects  of  the  past  are  still  with 
us.  It  is  true  that  the  crime  of  lynching  is 
decreasing  among  us.  It  is  also  true  that 
the  number  of  Negroes  lynched  in  the  years 
made  darkest  by  this  wickedness  was  almost 
negligible  as  compared  with  the  total  Negro 
population.  Negligible,  I  mean,  not  from  a 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      67 

human,  but  from  an  arithmetical  standpoint ; 
and  somehow,  by  that  curious  mental  process 
of  self-exculpation  common  to  all  men  in  the 
presence  of  embarrassing  or  shameful  facts, 
many  of  us  who  yet  abhor  mob  violence 
have  unconsciously  sought  refuge  from  the 
horror  in  the  arithmetical  point  of  view.  "  It 
is  horrible,"  we  say,  "  wicked,  shameful,  in 
human  ;  but  at  least,  thank  heaven,  the  crime 
is  infrequent :  the  millions  of  Negroes  never 
in  danger  proves  that.  As  a  race  they  are 
safe,  and  they  know  it." 

But  they  do  not  know  it;  nor  would  we  in 
their  place.  We  have  failed  to  use  our  imag 
ination  at  this  point.  Every  one  of  our  mil 
lions  of  black  citizens  knows  that  every  time 
this  fire  of  death  has  flamed  up  from  those 
depths  where  savagery  still  lurks  in  human 
hearts  it  has  burst  forth  in  a  fresh  place,  with 
out  warning,  dealing  individual  death,  and 
sometimes  suffering  for  many  not  even  ac 
cused  of  crime.  Lynchings  do  not  come  in 
the  same  place  twice  :  if  they  did  they  could 
be  avoided.  The  volcano  bursts  forth  from 
what  has  been,  in  the  memory  of  man,  but  a 
peaceful  hillside.  It  is  true  the  eruption 
seldom  takes  place :  the  awful  thing  to  the 
Negro  is  that  it  may  take  place  at  any  time, 
anywhere,  even  upon  trivial,  or,  conceivably, 


68  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

upon  unconscious  provocation.  That  is  lynch 
ing  from  the  Negroes'  point  of  view,  which 
would  probably  be  our  own  in  their  place. 
The  possibility  of  illegal  violence,  the  fear  of 
it,  is  an  ever-present  thing  in  their  lives.  It 
hangs,  a  thick  fog  of  distrust,  between  their 
race  and  ours.  Through  it  they  grope,  mis 
understanding  and  misinterpreting  many  of 
our  most  innocent  deeds  and  ways.  Individual 
whites  they  trust;  but  I  think  few  of  them 
really  trust  us  as  a  people.  They  know  that 
nearly  all  of  us  feel  kindly  to  them,  that  very 
few  of  us  would  ever  harm  them :  but  they 
also  realize,  taught  by  frightful  experience, 
that  when  the  very  small  lawless  white  ele 
ment  rises  against  them  they  cannot  certainly 
rely  upon  protection  from  the  rest  of  us. 

This  sense  of  evil  possibly  impending,  with 
the  deep  distrust  engendered  by  it,  colours 
all  the  Negro's  relations  with  us.  It  makes 
him  shifty,  time-serving.  All  of  personal 
good  that  he  plans  or  desires  too  often  ap 
pears  to  him  to  be  subject  to  the  one  impe 
rious  necessity  of  getting  along  with  white 
folks — not  of  deserving  or  obtaining  the  re 
spect  of  the  better  classes  among  us,  but  of 
avoiding  the  anger  of  individuals  of  our  small 
est  and  most  dangerous  class.  To  live  in  an 
atmosphere  like  that  without  moral  deteriora- 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      69 

tion  requires  a  strength  of  character  rare  in 
men  of  every  race. 

Nor  does  the  administration  of  criminal 
law  in  our  courts  always  tend  to  lessen  this 
distrust  of  white  people.  At  each  session  of 
the  Southern  Sociological  Congress  Southern 
men  high  in  office  among  us — judges,  pro 
fessors  in  our  great  universities,  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
leaders,  and  others,  have  stated  that,  despite 
individual  exceptions,  the  trend  of  our  courts 
is  to  mete  out  heavier  punishment  to  black 
offenders  than  to  white.  It  is  not,  they  say, 
that  Negroes  are  illegally  sentenced ;  but 
that,  for  similar  offenses,  the  Negro  gets  one 
of  the  heavier  sentences  permissible  under 
the  law,  the  white  man  one  of  the  lighter. 
More  than  one  Southern  governor  has  de 
fended  his  wholesale  use  of  the  pardoning 
power  on  the  express  ground  "  that  the  pro 
portion  of  convictions  is  greater,  and  the 
terms  of  sentence  longer,  for  Negroes  than 
for  whites."  One  Southern  judge,  a  speaker 
at  the  Sociological  Congress  in  Nashville, 
after  stating  that  the  white  man  too  often  es 
capes  where  the  Negro  is  punished  for  a  like 
offense,  added  the  warning  "  that  if  punish 
ments  of  the  law  are  not  imposed  upon  all 
offenders  alike  it  will  breed  distrust  of  ad 
ministration."  Yes  :  and  distrust  of  the 


70  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

race  behind  the  administration.  It  will,  and 
does. 

A  Southern  bishop  told  me  recently  that  at 
a  banquet  where  several  prominent  South 
erners  were  present,  this  judge  among  them, 
some  of  the  guests  questioned  the  accuracy 
of  his  statement  in  regard  to  discrimination  in 
the  courts.  "  And  he  just  turned  on  us,"  said 
the  bishop,  "  and  gave  us  chapter  and  verse. 
He  told  what  he  had  himself  seen,  in  differ 
ent  courts.  And  he  convinced  his  audience  ; 
when  he  finished  nobody  had  a  word  to  say." 

It  is  not  only  the  Negro's  well-being  that 
is  at  stake  in  this  matter  :  it  is  the  civilization 
of  the  South.  Through  all  the  ages,  the 
country  which  denies  the  poorest  equal  jus 
tice  is  the  one  foredoomed  to  fall.  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  our  Southern  courts  are 
no  more  unjust  to  the  very  poor  than  are  the 
courts  of  many  other  sections  of  our  country, 
especially  in  our  great  cities.  The  poor  im 
migrant  without  a  "  next  friend  "  is  liable  to 
fare  as  badly  as  the  Negro  without  any 
"  white  folks  "  ;  but  that  does  not  lessen  our 
danger,  or  our  responsibility.  It  ought  to 
draw  North  and  South  closer  together  in  the 
bonds  of  a  common  patriotism  and  a  common 
public  duty.  It  is  because  our  poor  are  made 
conspicuous,  and  advertised,  as  it  were,  by 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      71 

their  difference  in  colour  that  we  seem  to  all 
the  world  greater  sinners  at  this  point  than 
themselves.  But  while  I  would  offer  this  sug 
gestion,  that  others  outside  may  feel  more 
human  sympathy  for  us  while  yet  condemn 
ing  our  human  sin,  I  would  not  have  us  at 
all  excuse  ourselves  on  the  score  that  our  sin 
is  common  to  mankind.  A  social  conscience, 
like  a  personal  one,  regards  the  moral  qual 
ity  of  one's  own  deeds,  and  not  what  one's 
neighbours  do,  or  fail  to  do.  If  we  fail  to 
achieve  justice  for  the  poorest,  our  doom  is 
written  in  the  stars :  and  we  are  neither 
helped  nor  hindered  by  other  people's  short 
comings. 

Last  of  all  in  this  connection,  yet  in  their 
practical  prevention  of  good  feeling  between 
the  races  not  least,  are  the  annoyances,  dis 
comforts  and  hardships  laid  upon  the  better 
class  of  Negroes  by  our  failure  to  see  under 
their  black  skins  a  humanity  as  dear  to  jus 
tice  and  to  God  as  our  own.  There  are  many 
points  for  illustration ;  but  one  will  suffice 
here — the  matter  of  "  Jim  Crow  "  cars. 

We  who  believe  that  the  races  should  be 
kept  racially,  and  therefore  socially,  distinct 
cannot  advocate  their  mingling  in  the  en 
forced  intimacy  of  Pullman  cars.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  put  up  with  ourselves  under  such 


72  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

conditions — and  sometimes  almost  too  much. 
But  that  does  not  at  all  excuse  the  travelling 
conditions  which  are  forced  upon  Negroes  of 
education  and  refinement,  (I  use  the  word 
advisedly),  throughout  the  South.  They  pay 
for  a  straight  railroad  ticket  exactly  what  we 
pay,  and  we  force  them  to  habitually  accept 
in  return  accommodations  we  would  despise 
one  of  our  own  people  for  putting  up  with. 
— And  we  say  the  Negroes  are  dirty  !  Mirac 
ulously,  some  of  them  are  not,  notwithstand 
ing  all  the  provision  we  make  for  confirming 
them  in  that  condition. 

Last  year  a  young  Negro  girl  came  to  the 
school  of  which  my  husband  is  the  president 
— a  school,  by  the  way,  founded,  maintained 
and  officered  by  Southern  whites  ;  and  after 
she  had  been  there  some  time  she  confided 
to  one  of  her  white  teachers  the  fact  that  when 
she  came  to  the  city  she  had  ridden  in  "  the 
white  folks'  car." 

"  Were  you  with  white  people  ?  "  she  was 
asked. 

No,  she  was  not.  She  had  paid  her  full 
fare,  as  usual,  and  had  taken  her  place  in 
the  "  Jim  Crow "  car,  filthy  with  tobacco 
juice  and  incrusted  dirt,  foul  with  smoke 
both  new  and  old,  and  containing  a  number 
of  Negro  men  of  the  baser  sort — the  kind  of 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      73 

car,  in  short,  in  which  Negro  women  and 
girls,  and  clean,  educated,  well-to-do  Negro 
men  are  so  frequently  expected  to  travel. 
There  were  no  women  that  day,  and  only 
these  rough  men  ;  and  they  began  to  molest 
the  girl  almost  at  once.  Shrinking  back  in 
her  seat  in  terror,  she  felt  a  sudden  hope  as 
the  white  brakeman  came  through  the  car : 
but  he  passed  through,  as  unheeding  as 
though  dogs  were  squabbling  over  a  bone. 
She  stood  it  a  few  minutes  longer,  and  then 
dashed  frantically  into  the  next  car,  the  white 
day  coach,  dropped  into  the  last  seat,  and 
burst  into  tears.  Thus  the  conductor  found 
her.  On  hearing  her  story  he  told  her  to 
stay  where  she  was ;  that  if  any  of  the  white 
people  in  the  car  objected  he  would  explain 
her  presence,  and  they  would  be  willing  for 
her  to  stay.  No  one  objected,  however,  and 
she  rode  to  her  destination  in  peace. 

Not  all  conductors  are  so  humane.  And 
it  is  practically  impossible,  as  may  be  seen 
at  a  glance,  for  one  white  man,  often  a  mere 
boy,  to  keep  order  among  a  car-full  of  Ne 
groes  like  that,  roused  to  evil  by  the  pres 
ence  of  a  girl  evidently  above  their  own 
social  class.  A  white  boy-conductor  would 
be  risking  his  life  in  such  a  case  ;  and  even 
if  he  saved  it,  if  he  started  any  "  race  row  " 


74  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

on  a  railroad  train  by  defending  one  Negro 
from  another  he  would  lose  his  job.  So 
most  of  them  harden  their  hearts  and  turn 
their  eyes  the  other  way — a  performance  for 
which  I,  for  one,  am  slow  to  blame  them. 
We  have  no  right,  as  a  people,  habitually  to 
permit  impossible  situations,  and  then  to 
throw  the  responsibility  for  them  on  one 
man's,  or  one  boy's,  shoulders. 

Last  Christmas  a  coloured  kindergartner, 
employed  by  some  Southern  white  women 
in  settlement  work  among  her  own  people, 
went  home  for  the  holidays.  There  are 
several  day  trains,  but  some  important  home 
happening  made  her  presence  there  necessary 
the  morning  after  her  work  closed  at  the 
settlement ;  so  she  took  the  night  train,  a 
thing  she  had  never  done  before.  The  young 
woman  is  a  college  graduate,  refined  in 
speech  and  manner,  modest  and  sensible  in 
her  relations  with  people  of  both  races,  and 
a  strong  and  wholesome  force  in  the  lives  of 
the  poorer  Negroes  among  whom  she  works. 
She  took  the  Jim  Crow  car,  of  course,  expect 
ing  to  sit  up  all  night,  but  with  no  idea  of 
the  experiences  before  her.  The  car  was  full 
of  half-drunken  Negro  men  off  to  enjoy  one 
of  the  very  few  pleasures  open  to  Negroes  in 
the  South — a  regular  old  Christmas  spree. 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      75 

There  were  one  or  two  other  women  in  the 
car,  and  they  huddled  together  and  endured 
the  night  in  frightened  silence.  The  train 
men,  passing  through,  took  no  notice  of  the 
insults,  or  oaths,  or  vile  talk. 

When  she  told  the  white  women  who  had 
employed  her  about  it,  ten  days  later,  she 
trembled  as  she  spoke. 

"  I  had  never  seen  Negroes  like  that  in  my 
life,"  she  said.  "  I  knew  there  were  such 
men ;  but  my  mother  had  spent  her  life 
keeping  me  away  from  them. — Why  can't 
the  white  people  see  it  ? "  she  burst  out 
passionately.  "  Will  they  think  forever  that 
we  are  all  like  that  ?  Why  can't  they  let  us 
be  decent  when  we  want  to  be  ?  " 

While  my  husband  was  Secretary  of  Edu 
cation  of  the  Southern  Methodist  Church, 
part  of  his  work  was  to  lay  the  matter  of 
Negro  education  on  the  conscience  of  his 
denomination.  One  of  the  teachers  at  our 
one  school  for  Negroes  was  a  coloured  man 
of  unusual  gifts  and  character,  an  honour 
graduate  of  a  Northern  university,  and  a 
man  high  in  the  respect  and  friendship  of 
Southern  whites  in  many  states.  To  bring 
"  the  Negro  question  "  closer  home  to  our 
people  the  Methodist  Board  of  Education 
paid  this  man's  salary  and  travelling  ex- 


W  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

penses ;  and  for  four  years  the  white  man 
and  the  black  one  travelled  the  rounds  of 
our  annual  conferences,  presenting  the  cause 
of  the  Negro  to  our  white  preachers  and  lay 
men,  and  finding,  as  time  went  on,  much 
prejudice  giving  way  to  sympathy. 

The  conference  meetings  are  nearly  all 
crowded  into  three  months,  several  being 
held  each  week.  When  a  secretary  attends 
them  his  days  are  given  to  the  conferences, 
his  nights  to  travel ;  and  it  is  a  time  of  phys 
ical  strain,  even  with  all  the  comforts  of 
modern  travel.  My  husband,  strong  as  he 
is,  came  home  tired  out  at  the  end  of  each 
annual  round. 

"How  Gilbert  stands  it,  physically  or  re 
ligiously,  I  cannot  see,"  he  said.  "  He  goes 
half  the  time  without  lying  down  to  sleep. 
If  I  were  not  with  him,  to  dash  into  some 
white  restaurant  and  buy  him  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  something  to  eat,  he  would  often  go 
hungry.  And  I  have  never  once  heard  him 
complain,  or  seen  his  Christian  composure 
ruffled.  He  is  doing  us  white  people  a  great 
service,  freeing  us  from  some  of  our  worst 
prejudices :  and  we  require  him  to  do  it  at 
this  cost  1 " 

I  know  a  Negro  woman,  the  wife  of  a  doc 
tor,  whom  white  doctors  of  the  city  tell  me 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      77 

they  respect  both  as  a  man  and  as  a  physician. 
He  has  a  large  charity  practice,  but  a  large 
paying  one  also.  He  is  a  man  of  consider 
able  means,  and  owns  an  automobile.  His 
home  is  thoroughly  comfortable;  and  his 
wife  is  as  amply  provided  for  as  the  wife  of  a 
white  man  in  similar  circumstances  would 
be.  She  is  a  refined,  sensible,  good  woman, 
whose  influence  among  her  own  people  is  of 
the  best. 

She  told  me  not  long  ago  that  she  went  on 
a  visit  which  necessitated  a  day  in  the  usual 
Jim  Crow  car.  I  had  asked  her  about  the 
matter  or  she  would  not  have  mentioned  it. 
We  do  not  suspect  the  reserves  of  pride  in 
Negroes  of  this  class  ;  and  I  count  it  a  chief 
proof  that  my  life  among  them  is  not  a  fail 
ure  that  they  will  speak  to  me  frankly,  as  to 
a  friend. 

There  had  been  no  insult  or  terror  in  her 
case ;  simply  filth,  tobacco  juice  and  smoke, 
coarse  talk  among  other  Negroes,  and  blind 
ing,  choking  dust.  When  she  reached  her 
destination,  she  said,  no  one  could  have  told 
the  colour  or  texture  of  her  dress  or  hat. 

Somehow  the  hat  gripped  my  sympathies. 
Women  do  so  cherish  their  hats  !  I  am  never 
happy  myself  until  the  porter  brings  me  a 
bag,  and  my  head-gear  is  safe  beyond  reach 


T8  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

of  dust,  with  a  hat-pin  thrust  through  the 
gathered  opening  of  the  bag  into  the  back 
of  the  opposite  seat,  to  keep  its  precious  con 
tents  from  being  waggled  about.  I  can  wash 
my  hair  ;  but  a  soot-filled  hat  is  irretrievable  ; 
it  can  never  look  impeccable  again. 

Why  should  this  other  woman,  who  loves 
cleanliness  as  much  as  I  do,  and  who  is  quite 
as  willing  to  pay  for  it,  be  forced  to  travel  in 
that  disgusting  filth  ?  I  know  if  I  were  forced 
to  do  it  my  husband  and  my  children  and  all 
my  friends  would  feel  outraged  about  it,  and 
would  never  have  any  use  for  the  people 
who  made  me  do  it.  Why  should  these 
people  feel  differently?  It  is  nearly  always 
the  smaller  matters  of  life  which  make  its 
bitterness  or  its  sweetness  for  us  white  peo 
ple.  We  can  bear  great  things  greatly, 
often ;  but  our  courage  and  kindness  and 
sympathies  fail  before  the  annoyances  of 
life.  Shall  we  expect  more  of  Negroes  than 
of  ourselves? 

A  Southern  state,  a  few  years  ago,  required 
the  railroads  to  provide  equal  accommoda 
tions  for  whites  and  Negroes  in  that  state. 
They  replied  by  a  threat  to  take  off  all  Pull 
mans  for  white  people,  as  they  could  only  be 
operated  at  a  loss  for  Negroes:  and  the 
matter  was  dropped. 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      79 

But  day-coach  accommodations  are  rarely 
equal.  Even  where  the  cars  were  originally 
alike,  the  habitual  neglect  of  those  in  use  for 
Negroes  soon  reduces  them  to  a  condition 
revolting  to  people  of  cleanly  habits.  The 
fact  that  many  Negroes  are  unclean  in  their 
habits  is  no  excuse  for  the  condition  of  the 
cars.  When  white  people  are  unclean,  as 
they  often  are,  the  railroad  is  not  excused 
from  keeping  the  cars  in  a  fairly  decent  con 
dition,  at  worst.  They  may  have  to  spend  a 
little  more  for  soap  and  water  ;  but  they  must 
take  their  chances  on  that  when  they  sell 
tickets. 

The  Jim  Crow  cars  come  under  no  one 
general  description.  I  have  occasionally  seen 
a  car  for  Negroes  as  clean  as  any  day  coach 
for  whites.  Similarly,  I  have  known  per 
sonally  of  Negroes  riding  through  Southern 
states  all  day  and  all  night  in  a  Pullman 
section,  their  presence  known  to  all  the  white 
passengers,  none  of  whom  voiced  any  objec 
tion  to  them.  But  neither  occurrence  is  the 
rule. 

Sometimes  there  is  a  clean  day  coach  for 
Negroes,  and  also  a  separate  place  for  Negro 
men  to  smoke — usually  a  cut-off  end  of  the 
smoking-car  for  whites.  This  is  the  best  ac 
commodation  on  the  best  roads.  Sometimes 


80  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

this  half  of  a  smoking  car,  with  its  single 
toilet,  is  the  only  part  of  the  train  open  to 
Negroes  at  all.  Sometimes  there  is  no  place 
for  Negroes  except  in  the  car  with  white 
smokers,  though  this  again  is  unusual.  The 
average  conditions,  undoubtedly,  are  far  be 
low  those  provided  for  white  passengers  pay 
ing  the  same  price :  and  the  spirit  manifested 
by  this  treatment  of  Negroes  is  one  people  of 
any  race  or  any  class  have  the  right  to  resent. 

If  whole  Pullman  cars  cannot  be  profitably 
provided,  one  end  of  a  first  class  day  coach 
could  be  fitted  up  as  a  Pullman,  and  put  in 
charge  of  the  men  on  the  white  people's  Pull 
man  ;  and  the  other  part  of  the  car  could 
give  the  Negroes  what  they  now  so  often 
lack — day-coach  accommodations  equal  to 
those  for  whites. 

I  believe  the  railroad  people  themselves 
have  little  idea  of  the  number  of  Negroes 
who  could  and  would  pay  for  first-class  ac 
commodations.  We  know  little  about  the 
educated,  prosperous  members  of  the  race. 
As  fast  as  they  enter  this  class  they  withdraw 
into  a  world  of  their  own — a  world  which  lies 
all  about  us  white  folks,  yet  of  whose  exist 
ence  we  are  scarcely  aware.  It  is  largely  the 
inefficients,  the  failures,  or  the  immature  and 
untrained  who  remain  with  us.  As  they  rise 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      81 

out  of  this  class  they  disappear  from  our 
view.  There  are  more  prosperous  Negroes 
who  would  pay  for  Pullmans  than  we  im 
agine. 

But  if  the  railroads  claim  that  they  really 
cannot  provide  decent  day  coaches  and  com 
fortable  sleeping  accommodations  for  Ne 
groes,  a  commission  should  be  appointed  to 
look  into  the  matter  :  and  if  their  contention 
proved  just,  fares  for  everybody  should  be 
raised  by  law  to  a  point  which  would  allow 
the  roads  to  maintain  standards  of  comfort 
and  decency  for  all  their  passengers.  We 
cannot  afford,  as  a  people,  to  let  the  Negroes 
pay  for  our  cheap  fares  :  for  that  is  just  what 
it  amounts  to  when  the  railroad  takes  the 
same  amount  of  money  from  both  of  us,  and 
gives  us  better  accommodations  than  it  can 
afford  to  give  them.  We  are  not  paying  for 
all  we  get  in  our  day  coaches,  evidently  ;  and 
if  the  Negro  isn't  footing  the  bill  for  the  def 
icit,  who  is  ?  As  for  the  Pullman  company, 
if  half  the  published  tales  of  its  dividends  be 
true,  it  could  furnish  cars  for  Negroes  and 
pay  its  employees  a  living  wage,  and  yet  be 
in  no  danger  of  bankruptcy.  Public  utilities 
should  be  subject  to  public  control. 

It  should  be  pointed  out  that  not  one  of 
the  Negroes  whose  cases  I  have  cited,  nor 


82  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

any  Negro  I  ever  spoke  to  on  the  subject, 
had  any  desire  to  share  cars  with  white  peo 
ple.  They  have  their  pride,  too ;  and  they 
are  not  going  where  they  are  not  wanted. 
They  want  safety,  cleanliness,  and  comfort, 
not  white  company ;  and  they  are  willing 
and  ready  to  pay  for  them. 

There  is  another  grave  injustice,  wholly 
different  from  any  I  have  touched  upon, 
which  I  believe  has  had  a  profound  effect  for 
evil  upon  a  large  class  of  Negroes ;  yet 
scarcely  any  one,  white  or  black,  thinks  of  it 
as  injustice  at  all.  We  Southern  white 
women  are  greater  offenders  in  the  matter 
than  the  men ;  and  I  myself  must  plead 
guilty  to  the  common  charge.  Yet  I  scarcely 
see  how  a  woman  very  far  from  strong  could 
sometimes  do  differently ;  and  if  one  be  ex 
cused  on  the  score  of  illness,  it  looks  ugly  to 
call  her  neighbour  lazy  for  the  same  offense. 

We  demand  too  little  in  the  way  of  honest 
work  of  the  Negroes  in  our  employ.  Shirk 
ing,  untidy  habits,  petty,  and  often  serious, 
pilferings — we  wink  at  all  of  them,  and  con 
tinue  to  pay  honest  money  for  dishonest 
work.  We  do  not  like  to  discharge  Negroes. 
It  grates  on  our  pride  to  be  talked  about  by 
a  "  darkey"  :  and  talk  about  us  they  certainly 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      83 

will,  frequently  with  scant  respect  for  truth. 
And  as  to  discharging  them,  where  will  we 
get  a  better  one,  we  ask ;  they  are  all  alike. 
And  you  can't  possibly  do  the  work  yourself ; 
yet  if  you  make  them  mad  they  may  keep 
you  out  of  a  cook  for  weeks.  And  besides, 
"  darkies  "  are  "  darkies  "  :  white  people  al 
ways  have  put  up  with  them,  and  always 
will. — So  we  mourn  in  secret  over  the  de 
parted  flour,  and  sigh  for  the  lard  that  used 
to  be  in  the  bucket,  and  tell  Jane  or  Lucinda 
how  nice  her  cake  was  last  night,  and  give 
her  the  cold  biscuit  to  take  home  to  her 
grandmother,  and  a  few  cookies  for  the  chil 
dren.  And  when  Eliza  Ann  brings  in  the 
wash  with  three  of  the  best  towels  gone,  and 
half  the  handkerchiefs,  and  tells  us  blandly 
that  she  know  she  done  brung  back  ev'y  las' 
thing  she  took  out,  'cause  she  hung  'em  on 
her  own  line  an'  dey  ain't  been  nobody  near 
'em  but  her  an'  de  chillun,  we  falter  meekly 
that  it  doesn't  matter,  and  that  the  table 
cloths  look  nice ;  and  we  give  her  a  pair  of 
stockings  with  just  one  tiny  hole  in  them, 
and  the  dress  she  has  scorched  in  two  in  the 
back  breadth  to  make  over  for  little  Susan  ; 
and  we  pay  her  the  full  week's  wages. 

In  our  hearts  we  feel  that  we  are  "  qual 
ity,"  and  so  cannot  afford  to  hold  Negroes  to 


84  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

a  strict  account.  For  fifty  years  we  have 
trained  those  of  them  with  whom  we  have 
come  in  contact  to  rate  both  our  friendship 
and  our  gentility  in  exact  proportion  to  what 
we  put  up  with  from  them,  and  what  we  give 
them  without  expectation  of  return.  They 
think  none  the  less  of  Northern  people  who 
require  a  return  in  well-done  work  for  money 
received  ;  but  Southerners  are  "  our  white 
folks,"  and  such  exactions  from  them  arouse 
instant  distrust  in  the  average  Negro's  breast, 
the  least  of  his  suspicions  being  that  his  em 
ployer  has  no  connection  with  the  "  quality." 
A  year  or  two  ago  I  had  a  bright  little  col 
oured  girl  about  sixteen  years  old  as  extra 
help  while  company  was  in  the  house.  I 
never  have  locked  things  up.  I  would  rather 
have  a  dishonest  servant  steal  from  me  than 
hurt  an  honest  one's  feelings :  so  I  take  my 
chances.  But  things  did  so  vanish  out  of  the 
pantry  !  Cake  and  fruit  just  melted  into  air. 
The  cook  was  as  honest  as  I  was ;  and  my 
little  housemaid  was  getting  fat.  Finally, 
when  a  basket  of  high-priced  peaches  lost 
two-thirds  of  its  contents  before  appearing  in 
the  house  at  all,  I  knew,  like  Brer  Rabbit, 
that  something  had  to  be  done.  I  talked  to 
the  child  seriously  about  honesty  as  an  asset 
of  character.  She  turned  on  me  with  round- 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      85 

eyed  wonder,  and  with  what  I  still  believe  to 
have  been  genuine  scorn. 

"  Well,  if  ever  I  had  white  folks  talk  to 
me  like  that !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Honest !  I 
been  honest  all  my  life  !  I  ain't  never  worked 
anywhere  since  I  was  born  " — she  had  been 
at  it,  by  spells,  ever  since  she  was  ten — 
"  where  white  folks  grudge  me  what  I  et  be 
fore.  Ef  it  belongs  to  my  white  folks  hit  be 
longs  to  me,  an'  I  takes  it.  I  ain't  goin'  to 
work  for  no  other  kind."  And  she  put  on 
her  hat  and  went  home  :  I  was  beneath  her 
services. 

I  felt  ashamed.  I  had  put  up  with  her 
pilferings  a  long  time  before  I  spoke  ;  and  I 
and  others  like  me  had  been  training  her,  and 
tens  of  thousands  more,  to  shiftlessness  and 
dishonesty  ever  since  they  were  born.  The 
wonder  is  not  that  so  many  of  them  are 
worthless,  but  that  there  are  so  many  honest, 
painstaking,  trustworthy  ones  among  them. 
They  have  attained  to  honesty  with  little  help 
from  us. 

I  once  praised  a  cook  of  mine  for  her  ex 
quisite  cleanliness,  and  the  economy  with 
which  she  evolved  the  most  delicious  dishes. 
She  really  was  a  j  e wel  of  a  cook.  She  laughed 
amusedly  when  I  spoke. 

"I   worked  up  North  twelve  years,  an'  I 


86  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

learned  things,"  she  said.  "  If  I  was  dirty,  or 
wasted,  I  lost  my  place.  And  I'd  have  lost 
it  in  a  minute  if  I'd  taken  things.  Yankee 
women  don't  put  up  with  nothin'  ;  they  fire 
you  an'  do  the  work  themselves." 

She  turned  on  me  suddenly. 

"  It's  you  white  people's  fault  we  coloured 
people  are  so  triflin' !  "  she  burst  out.  "  You- 
all  scold  us,  but  you  put  up  with  us.  We 
don't  need  to  do  any  better,  because  we  get 
along  just  as  well  as  if  we  did  honest  work. 
You-all  say  '  Oh,  what  can  you  expect  of 
darkies  ? '  But  we  can  be  honest,  and  up 
there  they  make  us.  I  wasn't  no  manner  of 
account  till  I  went  North.  An'  if  the  Yan 
kees  had  some  of  these  other  servants  'round 
yere  they'd  learn  'em  somethin'.  We  can  do 
better — if  we  must !  " 

Now  in  all  these  matters,  great  and  small, 
and  in  dozens  more  which  may  not  here  be 
touched  upon,  what  basis  for  living  does 
white  example  furnish  ?  Outside  of  personal 
and  often  unreasoning  kindness,  where  we 
are  prone  to  take  the  attitude  of  feudal  lords 
who  give  largesse,  what  is  there  in  our  treat 
ment  of  the  Negro  to  inspire  him  with  respect 
for  justice  and  the  law  ?  If  we  will  lay  aside 
our  preconceived  notions  for  a  little,  and  go 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT       87 

over  all  the  complex  web  of  racial  relations 
in  the  South  as  they  might  appear  to  a  gen 
tleman  from  Mars,  for  instance,  newly  landed 
on  the  earth,  what  is  there,  outcome  of  the 
fifty  years,  commensurate  with  the  obligation 
of  a  strong  people  to  a  weak  one  ?  What 
have  we  done  to  bind  them  to  us  ?  What  to 
lift  them  up  ?  What  foundation  have  we  as 
a  people  laid  for  dwelling  with  them  in  honour 
and  mutual  good  will  ? 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  no  basis  of 
justice  exists  :  if  it  did  not,  our  civilization 
would  be  falling  of  its  own  weight.  It  does 
exist  between  many  individual  lives,  both 
white  and  black.  But  as  a  people  for  a  peo 
ple  the  foundation  is  yet  to  be  sought :  and 
other  foundation  than  justice  there  is  none. 

There  is  no  sense  in  mincing  matters.  We 
are  no  longer  children.  It  is  the  first  step 
that  costs,  always  ;  but  the  first  step  is  very 
plain.  It  is  to  put  away  childish  things — 
unreasoning  prejudice  and  unreasoning  pride 
— and  to  look  truth  squarely  in  the  face,  as 
men  and  women  who  love  it  at  all  costs. 
There  is  no  truth  in  a  detached  view  of  the 
Negro,  or  of  any  human  being.  Everybody 
on  earth  is  human  first  and  racial  afterwards. 
We  must  see  in  the  Negro  first  of  all,  deeper 
than  all,  higher  than  all,  a  man,  made  in  the 


88  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

image  of  God  as  truly  as  we  ourselves.  If  in 
the  race  that  image  be  less  developed  than  in 
our  own,  in  some  individuals  of  the  race  it  is 
certainly  more  highly  developed  than  in  some 
individuals  of  ours.  And  whatever  grows  is 
growable. 

The  only  basis  of  living  between  man  and 
man,  whether  low  or  high,  which  is  safe  for 
either  is  justice.  And  where  there  is  less 
than  justice,  the  danger  is  ever  greater  for 
the  oppressor  than  for  the  oppressed.  If 
white  civilization  is  to  endure,  in  the  South 
or  anywhere  else,  it  must  strike  deep  roots 
into  the  soil  of  our  common  humanity,  and 
reach  down  to  that  bed-rock  of  justice  which 
makes  the  framework  of  the  world. 

And  one  thing  more  is  needed.  For  jus 
tice  is  a  hard,  cold  thing  ;  stable  and  strong ; 
yet  must  it  be  softened  to  nourish  a  people's 
growth,  and  pass  through  the  alembic  of  life 
itself  before  it  can  mount  to  light  and  warmth, 
and  flutter  brave  banners  in  the  sunshine,  for 
the  joy  and  refreshment  of  mankind. 

There  are  some  elements  of  the  inorganic 
world  so  diverse  that  they  can  never  join 
hands  for  useful  work  except  in  the  presence 
of  another  element  which,  in  some  way  be 
yond  our  knowledge  as  yet,  removes  the  un 
seen  barriers,  and  allows  the  two  to  meet. 


THE  BASIS  OF  ADJUSTMENT      89 

We  call  it  catalytic  action,  by  way  of  labelling 
our  ignorance ;  and  that  which  allows  the 
unrelated  fragments  to  exert  their  latent 
power  for  common  service  is  a  catalyser. 

We  are  not  left  without  a  catalyser  in  our 
diverse  human  life.  In  an  atmosphere  of 
sympathy,  of  human  brotherhood,  of  care  for 
all  for  whom  Christ  died,  the  races  of  men — 
all  races — may  come  together,  for  service  of 
that  great  Race  which  climbs  upward  to  the 
light. 

My  only  fear  for  white  supremacy  is  that 
we  should  prove  unworthy  of  it.  If  we  fail 
there,  we  shall  pass.  Supremacy  is  for  serv 
ice.  It  is  suicide  to  thrust  other  races  back 
from  the  good  which  we  hold  in  trust  for  hu 
manity.  For  him  who  would  be  greatest  the 
price  is  still  that  he  shall  be  servant  of  all. 


Ill 

HOUSES  AND  HOMES 

LONG  ago,  when  I  was  a  child,  a 
grown-up  cousin  took  me  driving 
one  afternoon  behind  a  pair  of  his 
thoroughbreds.  As  we  swept  over  the  long 
shell  road  through  autumn  sunshine,  with  the 
pine  trees  singing  overhead  and  the  wind 
whitening  the  waves  in  the  harbour  beyond, 
I  came  on  one  of  those  experiences  known  to 
us  all,  when  something  long  familiar  yet 
never  noticed  stands  suddenly  forth,  chal 
lenging  eye  and  soul  in  a  manner  never  to 
be  forgotten. 

Beside  the  road  was  a  one-roomed  Negro 
cabin,  built  of  logs  and  chinked  with  mud. 
Its  one  door  swung  wide,  and  showed  the 
rotted  floor  within.  At  the  side  was  an  un- 
glazed  opening  like  an  eyeless  socket,  through 
which  I  glimpsed  a  tumbled  bed  and  a  broken 
cook-stove.  A  woman  stood  by  the  door,  a 
little  child  beside  her.  Their  rags  were  thick 
with  dirt.  The  child  looked  at  us  with  the 
wonder  and  interest  of  life  yet  in  his  young 
90 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  91 

eyes ;  but  the  woman's  black  face  was  ex 
pressionless,  her  murky  eyes  unquestioning, 
unexpectant.  She  saw  us  because  we  crossed 
her  field  of  vision,  just  as  an  animal  might 
see  a  passing  bird. 

The  day  was  glorious,  our  swift  flight  in 
toxicating  ;  the  swaying  pines  called  to  the 
blood,  and  the  sea  sang  of  wonders  yet  to  be  ; 
but  the  stolid  woman  and  her  eyeless  home 
blotted  out  everything  else.  I  had  looked  at 
the  like  a  thousand  times  ;  but  somehow  that 
day,  in  my  riot  of  physical  and  mental  exal 
tation,  I  had  eyes  to  see  ;  and  the  shock  of  it 
made  me  gasp. 

"Why  must  they  live  like  that?"  I  de 
manded.  "  Why  do  I  have  everything,  and 
they  nothing  ?  " 

My  elderly  cousin  laughed  a  little,  and 
then,  realizing  my  excitement,  spoke  soberly. 

"Don't  take  other  people's  troubles  too 
seriously,  my  dear  ;  try  to  understand  how 
much  being  used  to  things  means.  If  those 
darkies  had  to  live  in  your  house  they'd  never 
rest  till  they  got  it  as  dirty  and  broken  up  as 
what  they're  used  to.  Then  they'd  be  com 
fortable.  They  like  what  they've  got :  they're 
made  that  way." 

I  considered  this  comfortable  doctrine  in 
silence.  Then : 


92  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

"  Why  didn't  God  make  them  another  way 
— some  clean  way  ?  It  would  have  been  just 
as  easy.1' 

"That's  too  deep  water  for  a  person  of 
your  inches,"  he  replied.  "You  must  take 
God  and  folks  like  you  find  them.  But  that 
little  darkey  has  as  much  fun  as  you  do — 
maybe  more :  don't  worry  your  head  over 
nonsense." 

A  year  or  two  afterwards  my  father's  busi 
ness  took  us  to  a  great  city  of  the  North ;  and 
I  was  soon  hard  at  work,  on  Saturdays  and 
Sundays,  at  a  church  mission  in  the  tene 
ment  district.  Not  content  with  the  class 
work  at  the  chapel  I  visited  my  small  pupils 
in  their — no,  not  their  homes  ;  I  could  never 
call  them  that ;  their  dens.  There  were  long 
stairs  slippery  with  dirt,  where  blows  and 
curses  from  the  foul,  dark  rooms  assailed  my 
ears  ;  there  were  rooms  with  one  tiny  window, 
and  rooms  with  no  window  at  all ;  there  were 
beds  and  tubs  and  stoves  and  sewing-ma 
chines  and  babies  and  rags  and  tin  cans  and 
children  and  dirt  and  noise  in  one  horrible 
confusion. 

My  mother  was  dead,  and  I  kept  my  expe 
ditions  to  myself.  But  I  turned  back  to  what 
my  cousin  had  said  about  the  Negroes  for 
comfort.  Did  these  white  people  like  the 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  93 

way  they  lived  ?  Were  they  made  that  way 
too? 

The  more  I  saw  of  them  the  more  dubious 
I  became ;  but  my  sociological  researches, 
becoming  known  to  the  family,  were  sum 
marily  put  a  stop  to.  So  I  dropped  the 
biological  method  and  took  to  books. 

But  through  those  early  experiences  I  came 
unconsciously  to  regard  slum-dwellers  as  of 
one  class.  There  were  people  of  many  races 
in  those  tenements  ;  but  their  differences  sank 
out  of  sight  before  the  common  degradation 
of  their  lives.  And  always  with  the  thought 
of  these  came  the  memory  of  that  Negro 
woman  and  her  not-yet  stolid  child.  They 
were  human  too ;  and  there  was  something 
in  them  deeper  than  being  Negroes — some 
thing  that  was  kin  to  these  emigrants  of  the 
tenements,  and  to  me,  and  to  all  the  world. 
They  were  a  part  of  human  life,  like  the  rest : 
their  fundamental  needs  and  their  funda 
mental  reactions  to  environment  were  the 
same  in  kind.  Whatever  differences  existed, 
they  were  differences  in  degree. 

It  is  this  recognition  of  human  oneness 
that  opens  the  door  of  understanding  into  the 
Negro  slums.  One  slum  interprets  another ; 
each  slum-dweller  helps  to  explain  all  the 
rest,  whatever  their  nationality,  wherever 


94:  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

their  abode.  We  can  see  this  when  we  get 
rid  of  the  deadening  influence  of  the  old 
political  economy,  and  recognize  the  Negro 
slum  for  what  it,  and  all  slums,  are — the  joint 
product  of  ignorance,  greed,  and  the  mon 
strous  old  doctrine  of  laissez  faire. 

The  old  political  economy  was  a  science  of 
investigation,  not  one  of  construction,  and 
still  less  one  at  all  concerned  with  morality. 
It  observed  the  methods  of  human  business 
intercourse  much  as  one  might  examine  the 
ways  of  earthquakes,  or  any  other  natural  phe 
nomena,  with  a  view  to  deducting  therefrom 
certain  fixed  laws  as  inherent  in  the  nature 
of  things,  and  as  unmoral,  as  the  attraction  of 
oxygen  and  hydrogen.  Thus,  for  example, 
the  old  doctrine  concerning  wages — that  the 
employer  would  inevitably  drive  the  workman 
as  close  to  the  edge  of  starvation  as  he  possi 
bly  could  while  still  keeping  him  alive  to 
work ;  and  that  the  workman  would  resist  as 
much  as  he  dared  with  the  fear  of  losing  his 
job  before  his  eyes — was  accepted  as  a  basal 
law  of  a  world  where,  apparently,  whatever 
was  was  right.  In  such  a  world,  the  law  of 
gravitation  was  no  firmer  or  more  respectable 
a  fixture  than  the  law  that  the  landlord  should 
get  the  highest  rent  he  could  for  the  cheapest 
shelter  the  poor  could  be  induced  to  accept 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  95 

The  watchword  of  the  old  political  economy 
was  that  business  is  business — a  territory 
roped  off  from  human  considerations,  and 
governed  by  laws  of  its  own.  When  human 
beings  got  into  this  district  they  were  subject 
to  the  law  of  the  land,  which  gave  a  chance 
only  to  him  who  could  snatch  and  hold  it. 
Religion  and  philanthropy  might  stand  with 
out  if  they  would,  and  more  or  less  liberally 
anoint  the  wounds  of  those  who  were  worsted 
in  the  struggle,  but  otherwise  they  had  no 
concern  in  the  fray. 

This  conception  of  human  relations  had 
governed  the  world  for  ages  before  Ricardo 
formulated  his  "  iron  law."  Its  mark  is  deep 
in  our  life  and  thought  to-day  ;  and  nowhere 
is  it  plainer,  the  world  around,  than  upon  the 
houses  of  the  poor.  In  all  countries  where 
there  is  enough  of  civilization  for  society  to 
have  become  divided  into  groups,  the  poorer 
folk,  often  without  a  sense  of  wrong  on  their 
part  or  injustice  on  the  landlords',  have 
been  huddled  together  in  a  manner  to  bring 
property-owners  the  largest  returns,  regard 
less  of  other  consequences. 

Those  other  consequences  have  none  the 
less  left  their  mark  also  deep  in  human  life. 
They  are  the  same  everywhere,  regardless  of 
country  or  race. 


96  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Cleanliness  of  body  and  of  habitation  is  a 
fundamental  preparation  for  cleanliness  of 
mind,  and  water  and  fresh  air  exist  in  abun 
dance  to  furnish  it ;  yet  the  houses  of  those 
who  most  need  cleanliness,  and  to  whom  it 
is  most  difficult  by  inclination  and  occupa 
tion,  are  largely  cut  off  from  these  two  neces 
sities  without  which  human  life  cannot  be 
normal.  A  well-to-do  child,  with  generations 
of  bath-tubs,  outdoor  sports,  and  sunny  rooms 
behind  him,  might  retain  through  life  moral 
and  even  physical  health  under  the  condi 
tions  of  the  world's  slums  ;  but  his  children 
would  show  signs  of  breaking;  and  their 
children  would  be  as  truly  of  the  slum  as 
their  neighbours.  Generations  of  gain  could 
be  lost  in  one  man's  lifetime.  Yet  of  the 
mass  of  the  Negroes,  who  live  in  the  slums 
we  have  built  for  them,  where  water  is  hard 
to  come  by  and  adequate  ventilation  impos 
sible,  we  say  that  they  are  dirty  by  nature, 
and  that  to  provide  better  things  would  re 
sult  only  in  a  waste  of  money. 

We  know  little,  as  yet,  in  this  our  dawn 
of  social  consciousness,  of  the  slums  of  the 
rest  of  the  world.  Our  slum-dwellers  are  to 
us  a  race  apart,  a  separate  fragment  of  life, 
unrelated,  a  law  unto  themselves.  They 
make  their  slums,  we  think,  as  a  spider  spins 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  97 

his  web,  from  within.  We  all  know,  of 
course,  that  very  many  Negroes  are  far 
above  the  slum-dwellers.  There  are  few 
communities  in  the  South,  however  small, 
without  a  few  Negroes  whom  the  whites  re 
spect  and  trust.  But  we  regard  them,  not  as 
the  natural  outcome  of  a  more  normal  chance 
in  life,  but  as  exceptions  to  the  law  of  Negro 
development,  through  some  personally-in 
herent  exceptional  quality,  probably  an  in 
fusion  of  white  blood. 

We  need  a  wide  horizon  for  the  under 
standing  of  our  slum-dweller.  When  we  set 
him  in  his  world-relations  we  see  that  in  all 
mankind  slum  conditions  produce  slum 
results.  Waterless,  ill-ventilated  houses, 
crowded  beyond  the  possibility  of  decency 
because  of  low  wages  and  high  rents,  make 
impossible  the  physical  basis  that  is  neces 
sary  for  even  the  poorest  home.  And  with 
this  kind  of  housing  go  other  evils,  all  work 
ing  together  to  produce  in  any  people,  the 
world  around,  those  characteristics  which  we 
believe  to  be  racial  and  Negro.  In  a  popu 
lation  racially  homogeneous,  like  that  of 
Rome  or  of  Pekin,  or  racially  heterogeneous 
like  that  of  Chicago  or  New  York,  or  in  a 
bi-racial  population  like  our  own,  the  results 
are  the  same.  Bad  housing  conditions,  in- 


98  IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

sufficient  or  un-nourishing  food,  vicious  sur 
roundings,  a  childhood  spent  unprotected  in 
the  streets,  produce,  in  Europe,  Asia,  and 
America,  ill-nourished  bodies,  unbalanced 
nerves,  vacant  and  vicious  minds,  a  craving 
for  stimulants  and  all  evil  excitements,  lack 
of  energy,  weakened  wills,  laziness,  thriftless- 
ness,  unreliability  in  every  relation  of  life. 

As  life  rises,  it  differentiates.  Anglo-Saxon 
and  Chinaman  develop  along  different  lines ; 
and  the  higher  their  development  the  less 
alike  they  are.  Each  brings  his  own  race- 
contribution  to  the  great  Race  of  Man.  But 
in  those  lowest  depths,  where  men  are  thrust 
back  towards  the  level  of  beasts,  acquired 
characteristics  are  in  abeyance,  and  the  old 
brute  longings  dominate  once  more.  Men 
are  wonderfully  alike  on  this  level — as  alike 
as  are  vegetable  and  animal  on  their  lowest 
plane :  and  yellow  or  white  or  black,  there 
is  little  for  any  to  boast  of.  But  when 
normal  conditions  of  growth  are  furnished, 
men  of  each  race  will  come  true  to  type  ; 
and  the  higher  they  rise  the  greater  their 
differences  will  be.  Just  what  the  highest 
type  of  the  Negro  race  will  be  nobody 
knows ;  for  as  a  race  they  have  not  yet  had 
normal  conditions,  nor  time  for  full  develop 
ment.  But  whatever  it  may  be,  it  will  not 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  99 

be  a  white  type,  nor  a  red  nor  a  yellow  one  ; 
and  it  will  be  something  needed  for  the  per 
fect  development  of  the  Race  of  Man. 

These  things  being  so — and  a  wide  world- 
look  is  convincing — the  places  where  our 
poorest  live,  our  weakest  and  most  tempted 
folk,  take  on  new  aspects  and  suggest  new 
implications.  Our  slums  are  not  the  product 
of  a  race  unrelated  and  incapable  of  develop 
ment  ;  they  are  our  part  of  a  world-wide 
morass  where  life  capable  of  higher  things  is 
sucked  under  and  destroyed. 

The  old  political  economy  took  no  account 
of  such  matters  ;  it  accepted  as  a  universal 
law  the  policy  of  exploitation,  of  individual 
istic  commercialism,  of  cut-throat  competition. 
It  saw,  not  human  beings,  but  profit  and  loss. 

The  new  political  economy  is  shifting  the 
thought  and  the  business  of  the  world 
towards  a  basis  of  human  brotherhood.  It 
puts  human  rights  above  profit  and  loss,  and 
holds  conservation  a  wiser  policy  than  ex 
ploitation.  As  to  the  human  morass,  it  would 
drain  it.  And  all  this  not  as  a  matter  of 
charity,  not  because  Christ  said  men  are  all 
brethen ;  but  because  we  are  all  brethren,  and 
so  lose  more  than  we  gain,  in  the  long  run, 
if  we  run  things  on  any  other  basis.  That 
thing  Christ  said  is  true  ! 


100          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

When  one  sees  in  the  slum-dweller  a 
brother,  what  is  one  to  do  ?  If  he  really  is  a 
brother  it  will  pay  to  treat  him  like  one. 
Laws — the  real  ones — never  do  contradict 
one  another.  No  law  of  true  prosperity  can 
be  infringed  upon  by  obedience  to  the  law  of 
brotherhood,  if  brotherhood  is  a  real  fact.  It 
will  work  with  any  other  real  law  there  is. 

A  woman  saw  that,  fifty  years  ago,  and  set 
out  to  demonstrate  it  in  this  very  matter  of 
housing. 

"  The  people's  homes  are  bad,"  she  wrote, 
"  partly  because  they  are  badly  built  and  ar 
ranged  ;  they  are  tenfold  worse  because  the 
tenants'  habits  and  lives  are  what  they  are. 
Transplant  them  to-morrow  to  healthy  and 
commodious  homes,  and  they  would  pollute 
and  destroy  them.  There  needs,  and  will 
need  for  some  time,  a  reformatory  work  which 
will  demand  that  loving  zeal  of  individuals 
which  cannot  be  legislated  for  by  parliament. 
The  heart  of  the  English  nation  will  supply 
it.  It  may  and  should  be  organized  ;  it  can 
not  be  created." 

Might  not  that  have  been  written  of  the 
very  poor  of  New  York  or  St.  Louis,  instead 
of  the  very  poor  of  London  ?  Or  of  the  very 
poor  of  Atlanta  or  Birmingham,  who  happen 
to  be  black  ? 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES . 

In  1866,  three  years  after  Ruskin's  three 
thousand  pounds  made  the  beginning  of  her 
work  possible,  Miss  Hill  wrote  again  : 

"  That  the  spiritual  elevation  of  a  large 
class  depended  to  a  considerable  extent  on 
sanitary  reform  was,  I  considered,  proved. 
But  I  was  equally  certain  that  sanitary  im 
provement  itself  was  dependent  on  educa 
tional  work  among  grown-up  people.  .  .  . 
It  seems  to  me  that  a  greater  power  is  in  the 
hands  of  landlords  and  landladies  than  of 
school-teachers — power  either  of  life  or  death, 
physical  and  spiritual. 

"  The  disciplining  of  our  immense  poor 
population  must  be  effected  by  individual  in 
fluence  ;  and  this  power  can  change  it  from  a 
mob  of  paupers  and  semi-paupers  into  a  body 
of  self-dependent  workers." 

It  can  change  it  because  it  did,  and  does  ; 
and  Mr.  Ruskin,  "who  alone  believed  the 
scheme  would  work,"  was  repaid  in  good 
English  money  for  his  investment,  as  were  the 
many  others  whose  renting  properties  she  and 
her  trained  assistants  managed  during  the 
fifty  years  between  her  first  experiment  in 
1863  and  her  death  in  1912. 

After  twenty  years  of  work  she  wrote,  in 
1883: 

"  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  if  a 


102          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

site  were  handed  over  to  me  at  the  [usual] 
price,  I  would  engage  to  house  upon  it  under 
thoroughly  healthy  conditions,  at  rents  which 
they  could  pay,  and  which  would  yield  a  fair 
interest  on  capital,  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  very  poor." 

And  what  was  Miss  Hill's  scheme  ?  Just  a 
combination  of  the  law  of  brotherhood  with  a 
sound  business  policy  in  collecting  rents. 
With  Ruskin's  money  she  acquired  three 
houses  "  in  a  dreadful  state  of  dirt  and  neg 
lect."  This  was  remedied,  and  an  ample 
water  supply  provided.  She  herself  under 
took  to  collect  the  weekly  rent.  At  first  her 
tenants  regarded  her  as  a  natural  enemy. 
Sometimes,  when  she  went  on  Saturday 
nights  for  her  rent,  she  found  them  lying  on 
their  filthy  floors,  dead  drunk.  The  rent 
would  often  be  thrust  out  to  her  through  a 
crack  in  the  door,  held  fast  against  her  en 
trance.  The  stairs  were  "  many  inches  deep 
in  dirt,  so  hardened  that  a  shovel  had  to  be 
used  to  get  it  off."  The  people  were  the 
poorest  renting  class,  just  above  vagrants ; 
they  lived  on  the  edge  of  crime,  and  all  too  fre 
quently  passed  over  the  fatal  line.  "  Truly," 
said  Miss  Hill,  "  a  wild,  lawless,  desolate  little 
kingdom  to  rule  over." 

"  On  what  principles   was  I   to  rule  these 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  103 

people  ?  On  the  same  that  I  had  already 
tried,  and  tried  with  success,  in  other  places, 
and  which  I  may  sum  up  as  the  two  follow 
ing  :  firstly,  to  demand  a  strict  fulfillment  of 
their  duties  to  me — one  of  the  chief  of  which 
would  be  the  punctual  payment  of  rent ;  and 
secondly,  to  endeavour  to  be  so  unfailingly 
just  and  patient,  that  they  should  learn  to 
trust  the  rule  that  was  over  them. 

"  With  regard  to  details,  I  would  make  a 
few  improvements  at  once — such,  for  ex 
ample,  as  the  laying  on  of  water  and  repair 
ing  of  dust  bins  ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  im 
provements  should  be  made  only  by  degrees, 
as  the  people  became  more  capable  of  valu 
ing  and  not  abusing  them.  I  would  have 
the  rooms  distempered  and  thoroughly 
cleansed  as  they  became  vacant,  and  then 
they  should  be  offered  to  the  more  cleanly  of 
the  tenants.  I  would  save  such  repairs  as 
were  not  immediately  needed  as  a  means  of 
giving  work  to  the  men  in  times  of  distress. 
I  would  draft  the  occupants  of  the  under 
ground  kitchens  into  the  up-stairs  rooms,  and 
would  ultimately  convert  the  kitchens  into 
bath-rooms  and  wash-houses.  I  would  have 
the  landlady's  portion  of  the  house — i.  e.,  the 
stairs  and  passages — at  once  repaired  and 
distempered ;  and  they  should  be  regularly 


104          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

scrubbed,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  made 
models  of  cleanliness  ;  for  I  knew  from  former 
experience  that  the  example  of  this  would,  in 
time,  silently  spread  itself  to  the  rooms  them 
selves,  and  that  payment  for  this  work  would 
give  me  some  hold  over  the  elder  girls.  I 
would  collect  savings  personally,  not  trust  to 
their  being  taken  to  distant  banks  or  saving 
clubs.  And,  finally,  I  knew  that  I  should 
learn  to  feel  these  people  as  my  friends,  and 
so  should  instinctively  feel  the  same  respect 
for  their  privacy  and  their  independence,  and 
should  treat  them  with  the  same  courtesy, 
that  I  should  show  towards  any  other  per 
sonal  friends.  There  would  be  no  interfer 
ence,  no  entering  their  rooms  uninvited,  no 
offer  of  money  or  the  necessaries  of  life.  But 
when  occasion  presented  itself  I  should  give 
them  any  help  I  could,  such  as  I  might  offer 
without  insult  to  other  friends — sympathy  in 
their  distresses ;  advice,  help,  and  counsel  in 
their  difficulties.  .  .  . 

"  When  we  set  about  our  repairs  and  alter 
ations,  there  was  much  that  was  discourag 
ing.  The  better  class  of  people  in  the  court 
were  hopeless  of  any  permanent  improve 
ment.  When  one  of  the  tenants  of  the  shops 
saw  that  we  were  sending  workmen  into  the 
empty  rooms,  he  said  considerately,  *  I'll  tell 


AN  ALABAMA  SCHOOL  IMPROVEMENT  LEAGUE. 


A    GEORGIA    COUNTY    SUPERINTENDENT    VISITING 
NEGRO    SCHOOL. 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  105 

you  what  it  is,  Miss,  it'll  cost  you  a  lot  o' 
money  to  repair  them  places,  and  it's  no 
good.  The  women's  'eads'll  be  druv  through 
the  door  panels  again  in  no  time,  and  the 
place  is  good  enough  for  such  cattle  as  them 
there/  But  we  were  not  to  be  deterred. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  we  were  not  to  be 
hurried  in  our  action  by  threats.  These  were 
not  wanting.  For  no  sooner  did  the  tenants 
see  the  workmen  about  than  they  seemed  to 
think  that  if  they  only  clamoured  enough, 
they  would  get  their  own  rooms  put  to  rights. 
Nothing  had  been  done  for  years.  Now, 
they  thought,  was  their  opportunity.  More 
than  one  woman  locked  me  in  her  room  with 
her,  the  better  to  rave  and  storm.  She  would 
shake  the  rent  in  her  pocket  to  tempt  me 
with  the  sound  of  the  money,  and  roar  out 
'  that  never  a  farthing  of  it  would  she  pay  till 
her  grate  was  set/  or  her  floor  was  mended, 
as  the  case  might  be.  Perfect  silence  would 
make  her  voice  drop  lower  and  lower,  un 
til  at  last  she  would  stop,  wondering  that  no 
violent  answers  were  hurled  back  at  her,  and 
a  pause  would  ensue.  I  felt  that  promises 
would  be  little  believed  in,  and  besides,  I 
wished  to  feel  free  to  do  as  much,  and  only 
as  much,  as  seemed  to  me  best ;  so  that  my 
plan  was  to  trust  to  my  deeds  to  speak  for 


106          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

themselves,  and  inspire  confidence   as  time 
went  on. 

"  The  importance  of  advancing  slowly, 
and  of  gaining  some  hold  over  the  people  as 
a  necessary  accompaniment  to  any  real  im 
provement  in  their  dwellings,  was  perpetually 
apparent.  Their  habits  were  so  degraded 
that  we  had  to  work  a  change  in  these  before 
they  would  make  any  proper  use  of  the  im 
proved  surroundings  we  were  prepared  to 
give  them.  We  had  locks  torn  off,  windows 
broken,  drains  stopped,  dust-bins  misused  in 
every  manner  ;  even  pipes  broken,  and  water- 
taps  wrenched  away.  This  was  sometimes 
the  result  of  carelessness,  and  a  deeply-rooted 
habit  of  dirt  and  untidiness ;  sometimes  the 
damage  was  willful.  Our  remedy  was  to 
watch  the  right  moment  for  furnishing  these 
appliances,  to  persevere  in  supplying  them, 
and  to  get  the  people  by  degrees  to  work 
with  us  for  their  preservation.  I  have  learned 
to  know  that  people  are  ashamed  to  abuse  a 
place  they  find  cared  for.  They  will  add  dirt 
to  dirt  till  a  place  is  pestilential,  but  the  more 
they  find  done  for  it,  the  more  they  will  re 
spect  it,  till  at  last  order  and  cleanliness  pre 
vail.  It  is  this  feeling  of  theirs,  coupled  with 
the  fact  that  they  do  not  like  those  whom 
they  have  learned  to  love,  and  whose  stand- 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  107 

ard  is  higher  than  their  own,  to  see  things 
which  would  grieve  them,  which  has  enabled 
us  to  accomplish  nearly  every  reform  of  out 
ward  things  that  we  have  achieved  ;  so  that 
the  surest  way  to  have  any  place  kept  clean 
is  to  go  through  it  often  yourself.  .  .  . 

"  I  mentioned  our  custom  of  using  some  of 
the  necessary,  yet  not  immediately  wanted 
repairs  as  a  means  of  affording  work  to  ten 
ants  in  slack  times.  .  .  .  When  a  tenant 
is  out  of  work,  instead  of  reducing  his  energy 
by  any  gifts  of  money,  we  simply,  whenever 
the  funds  at  our  disposal  allow  it,  employ 
him  in  restoring  and  purifying  the  houses. 
And  what  a  difference  five  shillings'  worth  of 
work  in  a  bad  week  will  make  to  a  family ! 
The  father,  instead  of  idling  listlessly  at  the 
corner  of  the  street,  sets  busily  and  happily 
to  work,  prepares  the  whitewash,  mends  the 
plaster,  distempers  the  room  ;  the  wife  be 
thinks  herself  of  having  a  turn-out  of  musty 
corners  or  drawers — untouched,  maybe,  for 
months — of  cleaning  her  windows,  perhaps 
even  of  putting  up  a  clean  blind  ;  and  thus  a 
sense  of  decency,  the  hope  of  beginning 
afresh  and  doing  better,  comes  like  new  life 
into  the  home. 

"  The  same  cheering  and  encouraging  sort 
of  influence,  though  in  a  less  degree,  is  exer- 


108          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

cised  by  our  plan  of  having  a  little  band  of 
scrubbers. 

"  We  have  each  passage  scrubbed  twice  a 
week  by  one  of  the  elder  girls.  The  sixpence 
thus  earned  is  a  stimulus,  and  they  often  take 
an  extreme  interest  in  the  work  itself.  One 
little  girl  was  so  proud  of  her  first  cleaning 
that  she  stood  two  hours  watching  her  pas 
sage  lest  the  boys,  whom  she  considered  as 
the  natural  enemies  of  order  and  cleanliness, 
should  spoil  it  before  I  came  to  see  it.  And 
one  woman  remarked  to  her  neighbour  how 
nice  the  stairs  looked,  *  They  haven't  been 
cleaned,'  she  added,  *  since  ever  I  came  into 
this  house.'  She  had  been  there  six  years ! 
The  effect  of  these  clean  passages  frequently 
spreads  to  the  rooms,  as  the  dark  line  of  de 
marcation  between  the  cleaned  passage  and 
the  still  dirty  room  arouses  the  attention,  and 
begins  to  trouble  the  minds  of  its  inmates. 

"  Gradually,  then,  these  various  modes  of 
dealing  with  our  little  realm  began  to  tell. 
Gradually  the  people  began  to  trust  us  ;  and 
gradually  the  houses  were  improved.  The 
sense  of  quiet  power  and  sympathy  soon 
made  itself  felt,  and  less  and  less  was  there 
any  sign  of  rudeness  or  violence  towards  our 
selves.  Even  before  the  first  winter  was  over 
many  a  one  would  hurry  to  light  us  up  the 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  109 

stairs,  and  instead  of  my  having  the  rent- 
book  and  money  thrust  to  me  through  the 
half-open  door,  my  reception  would  be,  '  Oh, 
can't  you  come  in,  Miss,  and  sit  down  for  a 
bit  ? '  Little  by  little  houses  were  renovated, 
the  grates  reset,  the  holes  in  the  floors  re 
paired,  the  cracking,  dirty  plaster  replaced  by 
a  clean,  smooth  surface,  the  heaps  of  rubbish 
removed,  and  we  progressed  towards  order. 

"Amongst  the  many  benefits  which  the 
possession  of  the  houses  enables  us  to  confer 
on  the  people,  perhaps  one  of  the  most  im 
portant,  is  our  power  of  saving  them  from 
neighbours  who  would  render  their  lives 
miserable.  It  is  a  most  merciful  thing  to 
protect  the  poor  from  the  pain  of  living  in 
the  next  room  to  drunken,  disorderly  people. 
4 1  am  dying,'  said  an  old  woman  to  me  the 
other  day  :  '  I  wish  you  would  put  me  where 

I   can't   hear  S beating  his  wife.     Her 

screams  are  awful.     And  B ,  too,  he  do 

come  in  so  drunk.  Let  me  go  over  the  way 
to  No.  30.'  Our  success  depends  on  duly  ar 
ranging  ,the  inmates  :  not  too  many  children 
in  any  one  house,  so  as  to  overcrowd  it ;  not 
too  few,  so  as  to  overcrowd  another  ;  not  two 
bad  people  side  by  side,  or  they  drink  to- 
together  ;  not  a  terribly  bad  person  beside  a 
very  respectable  one. 


110          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

"  On  Saturday  evenings,  about  eight 
o'clock,  the  tenants  know  that  we  are  to  be 
found  in  the  club-room  .  .  .  and  that 
they  may  come  to  us  there  if  they  like,  either 
for  business  or  a  friendly  chat 

"  Picture  a  low,  rather  long  room,  one  of 
my  assistants  and  myself  sitting  in  state,  with 
pen  and  ink  and  bags  for  money  at  a  deal 
table  under  a  flaring  gas-jet ;  the  door,  which 
leads  straight  into  the  court,  standing  wide 
open.  A  bright  red  blind,  drawn  down  over 
the  broad  window,  prevents  the  passers-by 
from  gazing  in  there,  but  round  the  open 
door  there  are  gathered  a  set  of  wild,  dirty 
faces  looking  in  upon  us.  Such  a  semicircle 
they  make,  as  the  strong  gas-light  falls  upon 
them !  They  are  mostly  children  with  di 
shevelled  hair,  and  ragged,  uncared-for 
clothes ;  but  above  them,  now  and  then,  one 
sees  the  haggard  face  of  a  woman  hurrying 
to  make  her  Saturday  evening  purchases,  or 
the  vacant  stare  of  some  half-drunken  man. 
The  grown-up  people  who  stop  to  look  in 
are  usually  strangers,  for  those  who  know  us 
generally  come  in  to  us.  '  Well !  they  give 
it  this  time,  anyhow,'  one  woman  will  exclaim, 
sitting  down  on  a  bench  near  us,  so  engrossed 
in  the  question  of  whether  she  obtains  a  par 
ish  allowance  that  she  thinks  *  they '  can 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  111 

mean  no  one  but  the  Board  of  Guardians, 
and  '  it '  nothing  but  the  much-desired  allow 
ance.  *  Yes,  I  thought  I'd  come  in  and  tell 
you,'  she  will  go  on ;  'I  went  up  Tues 
day — r-'  And  then  will  follow  the  whole 
story. 

"  '  Well,  and  how  do  you  find  yourself, 
Miss  ? '  a  big  Irish  labourer  in  a  flannel  jacket 
will  say,  entering  afterwards ;  '  I  just  come 
in  to  say  I  shall  be  knocked  off  Monday  ; 
finished  a  job  across  the  park  :  and  if  so  be 
there's  any  little  thing  in  whitewashing  to  do, 
why,  I'll  be  glad  to  do  it.' 

"  '  Presently,'  we  reply,  nodding  to  a  thin, 
slight  woman  at  the  door.  She  has  not 
spoken,  but  we  know  the  meaning  of  that  be 
seeching  look.  She  wants  us  to  go  up  and 
get  her  husband's  rent  from  him  before  he 
goes  out  to  spend  more  of  it  in  drink. 

"The  eager,  watchful  eyes  of  one  of  our 
little  scrubbers  next  attract  attention  :  there 
she  stands,  with  her  savings-card  in  her  hand, 
waiting  till  we  enter  the  sixpences  she  has 
earned  from  us  during  the  week.  '  How 
much  have  I  got  ? '  she  says,  eyeing  the  writ 
ten  sixpences  with  delight,  '  because  mother 
says,  please,  I'm  to  draw  out  next  Saturday ; 
she's  going  to  buy  me  a  pair  of  boots.' 

"  *  Take  two  shillings  on  the  card  and  four 


112          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

shillings  rent,'  a  proudly  happy  woman  will 
say,  as  she  lays  down  a  piece  of  bright  gold. 
A  rare  sight  this  in  the  court,  but  her  hus 
band  has  been  in  regular  work  for  some 
little  time. 

"  '  Please,  Miss,'  says  another  woman,  *  will 
you  see  and  do  something  for  Jane  ?  She's 
that  masterful  since  her  father  died,  I  can't 
do  nothing  with  her,  and  she'll  do  no  good 
in  this  court.  Do  see  and  get  her  a  place 
somewheres  away.' 

"  A  man  will  enter  now :  '  I'll  leave  you 
my  rent  to-night,  Miss,  instead  o'  Monday, 
please ;  it'll  be  safer  with  you  than  with  me.1 

"  A  pale  woman  comes  next,  in  great 
sorrow.  Her  husband,  she  tells  us,  has  been 
arrested  without  cause.  We  believe  this  to 
be  true ;  the  man  has  always  paid  his  way 
honestly,  worked  industriously,  and  lived 
decently.  So  my  assistant  goes  round  to 
the  police-station  at  once  to  bail  him,  while 
I  remain  to  collect  the  savings.  '  Did  he 
seem  grateful  ? '  I  say  to  her  on  her  return. 
'  He  took  it  very  quietly,'  is  her  answer  ;  '  he 
seemed  to  feel  it  quite  natural  that  we  should 
help  him.' 

"  Such  are  some  of  the  scenes  on  our 
savings  evenings  ;  such  some  of  the  services 
we  are  called  upon  to  render  ;  such  the  kind 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  113 

of  footing  we  are  on  with  our  tenants.  An 
evening  such  as  this  assuredly  shows  that 
our  footing  has  somewhat  changed  since 
those  spent  in  this  court  during  the  first 
winter. 

"  My  readers  will  not  imagine  that  I  mean 
to  imply  that  there  are  not  still  depths  of 
evil  remaining  in  this  court.  It  would  be 
impossible  for  such  a  place  as  I  described  it 
as  being  originally  to  be  raised  in  two  years 
to  a  satisfactory  condition.  But  what  I  do 
contend  is,  that  we  have  worked  some  very 
real  reforms,  and  seen  some  very  real  re 
sults.  I  feel  that  it  is  in  a  very  great  degree 
a  question  of  time,  and  that,  now  that  we 
have  got  hold  of  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
the  court  is  sure  to  improve  steadily.  It  will 
pay  as  good  a  percentage  to  its  owners,  and 
will  benefit  its  tenants  as  much,  as  any  of  the 
other  properties  under  my  management  have 
done.  This  court  contains  two  out  of  eight 
properties  on  which  the  same  plans  have 
been  tried,  and  all  of  them  are  increasingly 
prosperous.  The  first  two  were  purchased 
by  Mr.  Ruskin. 

"  It  appears  to  me  then  to  be  proved  by 
practical  experience  that  when  we  can  induce 
the  rich  to  undertake  the  duties  of  landlord 
in  poor  neighbourhoods,  and  ensure  a  suffi- 


114          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

cient  amount  of  the  wise,  personal  super 
vision  of  educated  and  sympathetic  people 
acting  as  their  representatives,  we  achieve 
results  which  are  not  attainable  in  any  other 
way.  .  .  .  It  is  not  so  much  a  question 
of  dealing  with  houses  alone,  as  of  dealing 
with  houses  in  connection  with  their  influence 
on  the  character  and  habits  of  the  people  who 
inhabit  them.  .  .  .  The  principle  on  which 
the  whole  work  rests  is  that  the  inhabitants 
and  their  surroundings  must  be  improved 
together.  It  has  never  yet  failed  to  succeed. 

"  Finally,  I  would  call  upon  those  who  may 
possess  cottage  property  in  large  towns  to 
consider  the  immense  power  they  thus  hold 
in  their  hands,  and  the  large  influence  for 
good  they  may  exercise  by  the  wise  use 
of  that  power.  .  .  .  And  I  would  ask 
those  who  do  not  hold  such  property  to  con 
sider  whether  they  might  not,  by  possessing 
themselves  of  some,  confer  lasting  benefits  on 
their  poorer  neighbours  ? 

"  In  these  pages  I  have  dwelt  mainly  on 
the  way  our  management  affects  the  people, 
as  I  have  given  elsewhere  my  experience  as 
to  financial  matters  and  details  of  practical 
management.  But  I  may  here  urge  one 
thing  on  those  about  to  undertake  to  deal 
with  such  property — the  extreme  importance 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  115 

of  enforcing  the  punctual  payment  of  rents. 
This  principle  is  a  vital  one.  Firstly,  because 
it  strikes  one  blow  at  the  credit  system,  that 
curse  of  the  poor ;  secondly,  because  it  pre 
vents  large  losses  from  bad  debts,  and  pre 
vents  the  tenant  from  believing  he  will  be  suf 
fered  to  remain,  whatever  his  conduct  may 
be,  resting  that  belief  on  his  knowledge  of  the 
large  sum  that  would  be  lost  were  he  turned 
out ;  and,  thirdly,  because  the  mere  fact  that 
the  man  is  kept  up  to  his  duty  is  a  help  to 
him,  and  increases  his  self-respect  and  hope 
of  doing  better. 

"  I  would  also  say  to  those  who,  in  the  carry 
ing  out  of  such  an  undertaking,  are  brought 
into  immediate  contact  with  the  tenants,  that 
its  success  will  depend  most  of  all  on  their 
giving  sympathy  to  the  tenants,  and  awaken 
ing  confidence  in  them  ;  but  it  will  depend 
also  in  a  great  degree  on  their  power  of  be 
stowing  concentrated  attention  on  small  de 
tails.  .  .  . 

"It  is  the  small  things  of  the  world  that 
colour  the  lives  of  those  around,  and  it  is  on 
persistent  efforts  to  reform  these  that  prog 
ress  depends ;  and  we  may  rest  assured 
that  they  who  see  with  greater  eyes  than  ours 
have  a  due  estimate  of  the  service,  and  that 
if  we  did  but  perceive  the  mighty  principles 


116          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

underlying  these  tiny  things  we  should  rather 
feel  awed  that  we  are  entrusted  with  them  at 
all,  than  scornful  and  impatient  that  they  are 
no  larger.  What  are  we  that  we  should 
ask  for  more  than  that  God  should  let  us  work 
for  Him  among  the  tangible  things  which  He 
created  to  be  fair,  and  the  human  spirits 
which  He  redeemed  to  be  pure  ?  " 

I  have  quoted  at  length  from  Miss  Hill's 
little  book,  partly  because  her  work  is  so  lit 
tle  known  in  the  South  ;  partly  because  her 
own  words  make  so  clear  the  basis  of  human 
sympathy  on  which  the  success  of  all  such 
work  must  depend.  That  sympathy  is  a 
world-principle,  a  world-need,  and  a  world- 
power.  If  she  proved  with  these  people — as 
she  did  for  fifty  years — that  business  suc 
cess  is  entirely  compatible  with  a  spirit  of 
brotherhood  ;  that  housing  reform  and  the 
reform  of  immorality  and  vice  go  hand  in 
hand ;  that  paupers  and  semi-paupers  can 
be  changed  into  a  body  of  self-dependent 
workers  ;  then  surely  there  is  hope  for  slum- 
dwellers  elsewhere. 

The  Octavia  Hill  plan  has  been  tried  in  a 
number  of  cities  in  England  and  Scotland ; 
and  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia. 
The  work  has  been  to  a  remarkable  degree 
both  financially  and  humanly  successful. 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  117 

Mme.  Montessori's  work  in  Rome  is  among 
this  same  tenement  class.  Her  Houses  of 
Childhood  are  in  re-made  tenements,  where 
good  business  and  brotherhood  go  hand  in 
hand.  The  children  who  have  astonished  the 
world  are  from  this  same  class  of  paupers, 
semi-paupers  and  criminals.  Until  opportu 
nity  was  offered  these  who  had  been  denied 
it,  who  could  have  guessed  the  measure  of 
their  response  ? 

The  Negroes  of  this  same  economic  class 
need  what  their  class  needs  the  world  around. 
They  will  respond  in  the  same  way.  The 
colour  of  one's  skin,  or  even  the  shape  of 
one's  head,  cannot  change  the  working  of  a 
principle.  The  trouble  in  lifting  up  this  lowest 
class  of  Negroes  is  that  we  have  not  yet  paid  the 
price.  Things  worth  doing  always  cost ;  and 
to  do  this  thing  among  us  will  take,  in  some 
body's  heart,  that  same  passion  for  justice 
and  opportunity  for  the  weak  that  it  takes 
everywhere  else. 

But  the  doing  of  it  need  not  wait  until  that 
passion  rises  in  all  hearts,  else  one  might 
well  despair.  Prove  that  a  thing  pays — in 
money — and  it  goes.  Men  and  women  who 
cared  little  for  humanity  were  glad  to  turn 
the  management  of  their  tenement  property 
over  to  Miss  Hill  as  soon  as  they  found  re- 


118          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

turns  by  her  methods  were  better  than  by 
theirs.  She  was  so  overwhelmed  with  offers 
that  she  and  her  assistants  had  to  refuse  much 
of  what  the  owners  urged  upon  them.  Many 
of  the  great  manufacturers  of  this  and  other 
countries  frankly  admit  that  their  reason  for 
the  extensive  welfare  work  they  carry  on 
among  their  working  people  is  purely  a  busi 
ness  one  :  they  have  found  that  it  pays,  in 
money,  to  care  for  "  the  human  end  of  the 
machine." 

That  is  the  way  the  world  moves.  The 
people  with  love  in  their  hearts,  the  seers,  pay 
the  price,  open  the  new  way,  and  prove  it 
better  than  the  old  ;  then  people  walk  in  it, 
because  it  is  proven  good. 

There  is  nothing  to  do  with  many  of  the 
shanties  for  Negroes,  in  city  and  country,  but 
to  condemn  them  by  law  and  tear  them  down. 
As  our  social  conscience  becomes  aroused 
this  will  inevitably  be  done.  Many  houses 
now  in  use  would  do  very  well  if  given  a 
water  supply  and  some  extra  windows,  pro 
vided  the  rent-collecting  were  done,  not  by 
an  indifferent  or  contemptuous  real  estate 
agent,  but  on  the  Octavia  Hill  plan. 

Negro  women  of  force  and  character  should 
be  trained  under  white  auspices  to  do  this 
work.  Two  or  three  owners  of  Negro  rent- 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  119 

ing  property  could  together  employ  such  a 
rent  collector  for  what  the  real  estate  agent 
would  cost,  or  less.  Their  property  would 
improve  as  well  as  their  tenants  ;  and  the 
frightful  waste  of  humanity  that  goes  on  in 
our  slums,  the  drifting  of  wreckage  into  pris 
ons  and  poorhouses,  would  not  only  be 
checked,  but  these  now  broken  creatures 
would  become  a  community  asset,  as  every 
real  worker  is. 

We  need  an  experiment  station  in  the  hous 
ing  of  Negroes  of  this  class.  An  ordinary 
city  block,  two-thirds  of  it  covered  with  decent 
little  houses,  could  carry  the  interest  on  the 
whole  investment,  though  one-third  be  given 
over  to  a  playground,  on  a  corner  of  which 
should  stand  a  community  house  with  rooms 
for  clubs  and  industrial  classes,  as  well  as  a 
decent  meeting  place  for  young  people  in  the 
evening.  Such  a  plant  would  demonstrate 
that  healthful  housing  of  the  very  poor  could 
be  made  a  paying  investment ;  and  the  in 
come  from  it,  if  made  available  for  such  a 
purpose,  would  provide  for  the  training,  un 
der  the  best  of  white  management,  of  the 
Negro  social  workers  so  sorely  needed  in  the 
homes  of  our  poor. 

Calls  for  such  workers  are  already  coming 
from  white  people  in  several  Southern  states. 


120          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

The  owner  of  a  lumber  camp  in  the  South 
west,  who  has  long  carried  on  welfare  work 
among  his  white  employees,  has  tried  to  get 
a  Negro  woman  to  help  his  coloured  em 
ployees  ;  and  similar  efforts  have  been  lately 
made  by  several  others,  A  Southern  white 
woman  wrote  me  recently  of  conditions  in  a 
camp  of  Negroes  where  electricity  was  be 
ing  developed  from  water  power.  The  work 
men  had  their  families  with  them — fourteen 
hundred  black  folk  in  all,  herded  like  cattle 
there  in  God's  clean  mountains,  and  living  as 
untaught,  helpless  people  will.  Drinking, 
vice,  and  immorality  were  rampant.  The 
women  knew  nothing  of  home-making,  had 
homes  been  possible.  The  children  were 
born  like  flies,  and  grew  or  died  in  moral  and 
physical  filth.  A  breeding-place  for  crim 
inals  !  And  the  right  kind  of  Negro  woman, 
properly  trained,  and  backed  by  a  corporation 
merely  selfishly  intelligent,  could  have  brought 
outward  order  and  decency,  lifted  the  workers 
to  a  far  higher  efficiency,  and  created  many 
real  homes  there,  each  one  a  point  of  conta 
gion  for  life  and  hope  and  health.  It  would 
pay  in  dollars  and  cents. 

It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  housing  for 
Negroes  without   a  word   about   the   better 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  121 

classes  among  them,  and  the  fight  these  must 
make  for  decent  homes. 

The  thrifty  working  people,  who  constitute 
a  large  and  ever-growing  class,  make  heroic 
sacrifices  to  own  their  own  homes.  This  is 
easier  to  do  in  the  country  than  in  the  city,  and 
the  home,  when  won,  is  far  safer ;  for  if  one 
owns  even  a  very  few  acres  one  need  not  fear 
the  placing  of  a  saloon  next  door,  or  a  low 
dance-hall,  or  a  vice  resort  for  white  people — 
evils  which  constantly  threaten  every  Negro 
owner  of  a  hard-won  city  home.  Sanitary 
conditions,  too,  are  under  one's  own  control, 
and  with  intelligent  parents  it  is  possible  for 
children  to  grow  up  in  robust  health,  which 
they  can  scarcely  do  in  those  parts  of  our 
cities  open  to  Negro  homes.  The  country  is 
the  place  for  poor  Negroes,  not  because  they 
are  Negroes,  but  because  they  are  human, 
and  of  like  needs  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 

But  before  they  will  be  permanently  con 
tent  in  the  country  they  must  have  what  any 
race  of  people  must  have  under  like  condi 
tions  :  perfect  security  for  life  and  property  ; 
and  such  education  as  will  relate  them  to 
country  life  in  an  efficient,  social  and  joyful 
way. 

Neither  of  these  things  is  beyond  attain 
ment.  The  trend  towards  better  education 


122          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

in  the  Negro  rural  schools  is  noted  else 
where  ;  and  the  effects  of  this  movement  will 
be  powerfully  reinforced  by  the  decision  of 
the  United  States  Government  to  use  its  eight 
hundred  Southern  farm-demonstrators  for 
work  among  both  races.  There  is  also  a 
strong  element  in  the  Southern  state  univer 
sities  which  favours  the  inclusion  of  gather 
ings  of  Negro  farmers  in  the  agricultural 
extension  work  of  their  lecturers  and  demon 
strators.  When  these  things  bear  fruit,  and 
when  not  merely  a  large  part  of  the  South, 
but  absolutely  all  of  it,  is  as  safe  for  Negroes 
as  for  white  people,  the  housing  of  the 
country  Negro  will  be  a  problem  practically 
solved. 

The  city  'dwellers  are  in  a  harder  case. 
The  poorest  share  the  fate  of  slum-dwellers 
of  all  races.  They  live  in  those  sections 
which  are  morally  and  physically  the  least 
desirable,  and  are  neglected  habitually  by  the 
city  health  authorities.  Cleanliness  and  de 
cency  are  alike  beyond  them.  But  in  addi 
tion  to  these  things,  in  far  too  many  of  our 
cities,  both  the  respectable  working  man  and 
the  prosperous,  educated  Negro  are  forced  to 
live  in  surroundings  from  which  men  of  any 
other  race,  of  their  economic  status,  would 
be  allowed  to  escape. 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  123 

It  is  even  worse  than  that.  When  by  their 
own  efforts  a  few  Negroes  secure  a  respect 
able  neighbourhood,  families  of  the  better 
class  building  up  a  little  community  of  their 
own,  they  are  peculiarly  liable  to  have  saloons 
and  houses  of  ill-fame  thrust  upon  them  by  a 
low  class  of  whites  whom  the  upper  classes 
do  not  restrain.  The  Negro  owner  of  a  city 
home,  whatever  his  education  or  business 
success,  whatever  the  sum  invested  in  his 
property,  cannot  be  sure,  from  month  to 
month,  of  retaining  for  his  family  surround 
ings  compatible  with  moral  health  and  safety. 

I  know  a  Negro,  an  honour  graduate  of 
Brown  University,  a  winner  there  of  the  fel 
lowship  in  the  American  School  at  Athens, 
Greece.  He  is  a  man  of  wide  attainments, 
of  blameless  life,  of  modesty  and  good  man 
ners.  He  is  in  full  sympathy  with  the  best 
Southern  thought  concerning  race  relations  ; 
and  his  wide  influence  among  his  people  is  a 
thing  for  white  Southerners  to  be  thankful 
for.  He  has  turned  aside  from  money-get 
ting,  all  these  years,  to  serve  his  people  in 
return  for  a  very  simple  living.  By  what 
effort  one  can  imagine  he  bought  a  little 
home.  It  is  far  from  his  work,  on  the  out 
skirts  of  the  city,  placed  there  in  the  hope 
that  his  children  might  grow  up  in  safety. 


124          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

His  home  attracted  other  homes,  until  the 
neighbourhood  became  good  enough  for  a 
white  man's  house  of  ill-fame,  which  he 
found  was  to  be  erected  on  the  lot  adjoining 
his  own.  He  has  three  daughters,  the  oldest 
barely  grown.  He  saved  himself  by  buying 
the  lot,  at  a  cost  of  long  saving  and  strain. 

"  But  I  am  not  safe  any  more,"  he  said. 
"  There  are  still  vacant  lots  there ;  and  I 
can't  possibly  buy  them  all." 

If  I  were  a  Negro  I  should  do  just  as  Ne 
groes  do — resent  with  all  my  heart  our  stupid 
white  assumption  that  when  they  attempt  to 
buy  property  in  our  own  desirable  sections 
they  are  trying  to  force  themselves  upon  us 
in  impudence,  and  to  assert  their  belief  in 
and  desire  for  "  social  equality." 

What  these  Negroes  of  the  better  classes 
want  is  first  of  all  a  neighbourhood  of  as 
sured  moral  decency  in  which  to  rear  their 
children.  Their  passionate  desire  for  char 
acter  in  their  children  we  do  not  begin  to  un 
derstand.  Next  to  that  they  want  sanitary 
conditions,  and  avoidance  of  the  lower  classes 
of  their  own  people,  just  as  we  do  ourselves. 
To  get  these  things  some  Negroes  are  willing 
to  thrust  themselves,  if  they  can,  among 
white  people,  and  to  endure  their  resentment 
and  contempt. 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  125 

"  If  you  white  people  could  only  under 
stand  !  "  a  Negro  woman  said  to  me  not  long 
ago,  her  face  fired  with  feeling.  "  We  don't 
want  our  homes  where  we're  not  wanted. 
But  we  want  to  be  decent,  too.  And  it's  the 
same  all  over  the  country — anything  will  do 
for  a  '  nigger.'  You  think  we're  all  alike,  and 
you  don't  care  what  happens  to  us  just  so 
we're  out  of  your  sight.  My  husband  and  I 
were  living  in  Denver ;  and  we  had  money 
to  pay  for  a  comfortable  house.  But  there 
wasn't  a  place  for  rent  to  Negroes  that  a  self- 
respecting  Negro  would  have.  And  how  will 
my  people  ever  learn  to  be  decent  if  they 
must  live  in  the  white  people's  vice  district  ?  " 

We  have  no  right  to  treat  people  like  that. 
In  one  large  Southern  city,  with  high  taxes 
and  a  big  revenue  and  an  expensive  health 
department,  a  white  friend  of  mine  counted 
one  morning  twelve  dead  cats  and  dogs,  in 
various  stages  of  decomposition,  in  one  short 
Negro  alley.  It  was  not  an  uncommon  sight, 
except  that  the  corpses  were  rather  numerous. 
The  outhouses  are  vile  beyond  description,  a 
menace  not  merely  to  the  Negroes  but  to  the 
entire  community.  Yet  if  a  Negro  tries  to 
buy  a  home  in  a  healthful  part  of  town  we 
think  his  one  motive  is  to  thrust  himself 
upon  us,  socially,  just  as  far  as  he  dares. 


126          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

The  way  out  of  a  situation  like  that  is  so 
simple,  so  plain !  What  is  needed  to  solve 
the  problem  is  not  a  segregation  law,  to  force 
those  who  would  be  clean  back  into  the  bog 
we  ought  to  drain  out  of  existence  ;  it  is  just 
to  put  ourselves  in  the  Negroes'  place  and  do 
as  we  would  be  done  by.  If  we  white  people 
could  only  have  a  Negro's  consciousness  for 
a  day  or  two  it  would  clear  up  so  many 
things.  As  it  is,  we  can  at  least  use  our  im 
agination. 

If  the  city's  health  laws  were  enforced 
where  they  are  most  needed,  punishing  those 
who  break  them  if  necessary,  till  they  learned 
better  ;  if  streets  could  be  set  aside  in  a  dis 
trict  capable  of  being  made  attractive,  and  a 
fair  share  of  city  improvements  put  there  ;  if 
the  Negroes  who  built  good  homes  there 
were  protected  as  well-to-do  white  people  are 
from  the  fear  of  saloons  and  other  vice  re 
sorts  ;  if  it  were  all  done  not  in  contempt, 
but  in  a  spirit  of  justice  and  human  consider 
ation,  there  would  be  no  need  for  segregation 
laws.  Negroes,  like  white  people,  like  to  live 
among  their  friends.  The  overwhelming 
majority  of  them  believe,  as  we  do,  in  the  so 
cial  separation  of  the  races ;  and  beyond 
that,  they  do  not  want  their  children  to  grow 
up  among  those  who  look  down  upon  them. 


HOUSES  AND  HOMES  127 

I  am  told  that  a  well-to-do  Negro  in  Kansas 
City,  understanding  his  people's  feeling, 
bought  a  considerable  tract  of  land  there, 
some  distance  out,  and  improved  it  as  white 
men  do  for  white  buyers.  The  lots  were  sold 
under  restrictions  which  guaranteed  the 
neighbourhood  morally,  and  went,  my  inform 
ant  said,  "  like  hot  cakes."  The  place  is 
to-day  the  most  desirable  for  Negro  home 
owners  in  Kansas  City.  The  man  who 
bought  the  land  originally  made  a  handsome 
profit.  His  example  could  be  followed  by 
real  estate  men,  white  or  black,  in  any  large 
Southern  city  with  an  assurance  of  success. 
It  is  really  not  bad  business  to  do  justice. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  this  matter  of 
Negro  homes  because  it  is  fundamental  to 
justice,  and  therefore  to  any  lasting  ad 
justment  between  the  races.  No  people  can 
rise  higher  than  their  homes.  And  we  criti 
cize  unsparingly  the  Negro's  weakness  and 
faults,  yet  fasten  upon  him  living  conditions 
which,  the  world  over  and  among  all  races, 
breed  just  those  things  for  which  we  blame 
him  most. 


IV 

AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION 

THERE  is  practical  unanimity  in  the 
South     regarding    the    low    moral 
standards  of  the  Negro  race  as  a 
whole.     We  admit  that  there  are  exceptions 
to  the  rule  ;  we  always  know  a  few  person 
ally.      But  the  overwhelming   concensus   of 
opinion  is  that  Negroes  generally  are  dirty,  un 
truthful,  and  immoral ;  and  beyond  and  above 
and  below  everything  else,  they  are  by  na 
ture  dishonest. 

However  exaggerated  such  statements 
may  be  as  applied  to  the  whole  ten  million 
Negroes  in  America,  very  many  of  whom  are 
practically  as  unknown  to  us  whites  as 
though  they  lived  in  another  country,  they 
are  dangerously  true  of  a  large  part  of  that 
class  with  which  we  come  most  frequently  in 
contact.  But  have  we  ever  asked  ourselves 
why?  Have  we  gone  into  their  homes  to 
find  what  drives  them  ?  Do  we  know  any 
thing  of  the  wants  in  their  lives  ?  Have  we 
any  idea  of  the  tremendous  forces  of  wreck 
age  which  gather  in  those  great  empty  places 
128 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     129 

where  human  need  cries  with  none  to  an 
swer  ? 

If  we  would  look  a  little  into  the  lives  of 
those  who  live  below  the  poverty  line  in 
communities  where  there  are  no  black  peo 
ple,  we  would  find  that  there  is  a  certain  de 
gree  of  pressure  under  which  human  char 
acter,  in  the  mass,  tends  to  break.  The  ideal 
of  humanity  is  the  man  who  will  meet  all 
tests,  endure  all  pressure,  surmount  all  diffi 
culties,  suffer  all  loss,  and  pass  out  at  last 
still  pure  in  heart,  unspotted,  undefiled. 
However  we  fail  ourselves — nay,  because  we 
fail — we  cling  to  this  ideal  as  the  standard  by 
which  men  should  be  judged.  Whatever  soil 
of  sin  be  on  us,  we  know,  in  our  inmost  hearts, 
that  men  and  women  were  meant  to  be  like 
that.  It  is  for  this  that  we  honour  our  heroes 
and  martyrs,  who,  wherever  they  have  come 
to  birth,  belong  first  of  all  to  humanity,  and 
not  to  any  one  race.  It  is  not  for  what  they 
bore  that  we  love  them  most,  nor  for  what 
they  have  achieved  :  they  are  to  us  revealers 
of  our  own  possibilities.  We  see  in  them 
the  heights  to  which  we  ourselves,  and  all 
humanity,  were  meant  to  rise. 

But  is  a  child's  power  of  resistance  to  be 
tested  like  an  adult's  ?  We  are  learning  that 
premature  burdens  will  strain  young  muscle 


130          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

beyond  the  possibility  of  future  vigour.  We 
found  out  long  ago  that  young  colts  and 
calves  must  be  shielded  from  undue  strain : 
we  lost  money  unless  they  were. 

Later,  and  more  slowly,  the  world  is  wak 
ing  to  the  money  loss  involved  in  straining 
children's  muscles  too  soon.  We  find  that  a 
child's  muscles  are  a  national  asset,  or  ought 
to  be,  as  well  as  a  colt's.  But  character  is  a 
more  precious  asset  still.  It  is  a  driving- 
force  scarcely  to  be  measured  in  national  life, 
a  productive  source  of  wealth,  as  well  as  of 
happiness,  beyond  any  other  one  thing.  It 
is  of  far  slower  growth  than  muscle,  and 
strain  is  more  fatal,  care  more  vital  to  it. 
Even  the  highest  races  are  still  so  unde 
veloped  morally  that  in  any  heavy,  wide 
spread  stress  the  cartilaginous  honour  of 
thousands  will  give  under  the  pressure,  until 
men  hitherto  counted  blameless  seem  little 
better  than  beasts.  Times  of  war  disclose 
conditions  like  that,  invariably  ;  and  times  of 
wide-spread  panic,  or  famine,  or  disaster  of 
any  kind.  The  San  Francisco  earthquake 
furnished  a  recent  and  spectacular  example. 

Now  when  these  things  are  true  of  favoured 
folk,  of  those  who  have  had  something  of  a 
normal  chance  in  life,  we  may  be  sure,  even 
before  we  look  to  see,  that  those  cut  off  from 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     131 

a  normal  chance  will  not,  in  the  mass,  de 
velop  much  power  of  resistance  to  undue 
strain.  They,  of  all  men,  have  least  to  bear 
strain  with.  Their  moral  muscles,  under 
nourished  and  over-strained  from  birth,  are 
uncoordinated  with  one  another,  or  with 
their  wills.  The  will  itself  hangs  loose  and 
undeveloped,  shaken  by  vagrant  desires  and 
passing  storms  of  passion.  These  are  the 
people,  the  world  around,  who  strew  the  path 
of  civilization  with  wreckage.  Crime  is  but 
the  extreme  manifestation  of  conditions  which 
create  vast  swamps  of  incapacity,  shiftless- 
ness  and  immorality,  in  which  human  charac 
ter  is  engulfed  as  in  a  quicksand,  and  out  of 
which  crime  emerges  as  the  topmost  blossom 
of  its  rank  and  fetid  growth. 

What  are  some  of  the  main  causes  of  this 
human  ruin  and  waste  ?  Not  here  in  the 
South,  but  everywhere.  We  have  no  pecul 
iar  laws  of  life  down  here,  any  more  than  we 
have  peculiar  laws  of  physics.  If  an  apple 
falls  to  the  ground  in  England  because  of  the 
attraction  of  gravitation,  one  will  fall  in 
Maine,  or  in  Georgia,  or  in  Kamchatka,  for 
exactly  the  same  reason.  And  if  certain  con 
ditions  in  New  York  wreck  physical  and 
moral  health  in  human  beings,  and  result  in 
all  unhuman  ruin,  those  same  conditions  will 


132          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

produce  similar  results,  in  any  climate,  upon 
any  fragment  of  humanity  exposed  to  them. 

We  are  a  pious  people  here  in  the  South — 
perhaps,  like  our  brethren  elsewhere,  more 
pious  than  we  are  Christlike.  There  are  very 
many  of  us  who,  when  the  effect  of  conditions 
on  character  is  asserted,  begin  at  once  to  de 
fend  God's  almightiness,  and  the  power  of 
grace  to  save  to  the  uttermost.  To  some 
among  us  it  seems  a  reflection  on  grace  to 
suggest  that  men  ever  need  anything  else,  or 
need  grace  itself  anywhere  but  in  their  own 
lives.  But  they  do  need  it  elsewhere,  never 
theless — in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  other  peo 
ple,  and  expressed  in  the  conditions  which 
surround  them.  One  of  the  best  women  I 
know,  one  of  unusual  intelligence  and  educa 
tion,  said  to  me  not  long  ago,  in  a  hesitating, 
doubtful  voice  : 

"  And  you  heard  her  say,  that  doctor,  just 
as  I  did,  that  when  she  examined  the  blood 
of  those  thirty  fallen  girls  the  average  for  the 
thirty  was  less  than  three  million  red  blood- 
corpuscles  where  five  million  were  normal ; 
and  that  blood  so  impoverished  lowered  the 
vitality,  starved  the  nerves,  lessened  their  re 
sistive  power  to  temptation  and  impaired 
their  wills,  as  well  as  their  energy  and  ability 
to  work.  She  said  they  were  not  fallen 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     133 

women  :  they  were  felled  women — felled  by 
social  conditions  to  which  we  Christian  women 
assented. — It  did  sound  reasonable,  I  know, 
and  dreadful.  I  felt  like  a  criminal  myself,  al 
most.  But  doesn't  it  leave  out  God,  and  sal 
vation  ?  Where  does  sin  come  in  when  you 
look  at  society  like  that  ?  And  surely  God  is 

almighty;  and  His  grace "     She  looked 

at  me,  a  puzzled  frown  between  her  eyes. 

I  do  not  doubt  God's  almightiness  ;  nor  do 
I  pretend  to  understand  why,  being  almighty, 
He  has  chosen  to  so  limit  His  own  power  that 
His  own  will  cannot  possibly  get  done  in  this 
world  until  men  are  willing  to  do  it.  I  do 
not  doubt  that  He  can  do  a  great  many  things 
which  I  feel  sure  He  never  will.  He  never  will, 
for  instance,  enable  a  man  to  make  two  hun 
dred  bushels  of  corn  to  the  acre  on  land  un 
cleared  of  weeds  :  and  He  will  not  return  to 
any  people,  or  any  church,  a  harvest  of 
"saved  souls"  in  bodies  whose  living  con 
ditions  defy  all  His  laws  of  health  and  growth 
and  decency,  moral  and  physical.  A  few  ears 
of  corn  may  come  to  maturity,  even  among 
the  weeds ;  and  a  man  or  woman  here  or 
there  may  rise  to  newness  of  life  despite 
surroundings  which  deal  death  on  every 
side :  but  the  law  holds  good,  all  the  same. 
It  would  be  quite  as  effective,  and  fully  as 


134:          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

religious,  so  far  as  I  can  understand,  to 
kneel  beside  the  untouched  weeds  and  pray 
for  a  bumper  crop  of  corn  as  it  is  for  us 
Christians  to  pray  for  the  souls'  salvation  of 
the  poor,  and  go  comfortably  home  to  din 
ner  without  one  rudimentary  intention  of 
furnishing  them  surroundings  in  which  love 
and  righteousness  can  flourish.  To  look  at 
community  life  like  that  does  not,  to  my  mind, 
do  away  with  sin.  It  fixes  it  on  us,  the  sup 
posedly  righteous,  who  know  and  do  not, 
rather  than  on  those  who  neither  know  nor 
do,  and  whom  we  fail  to  enlighten  or  protect. 
I  know  the  feeling  is  very  strong  in  the 
South  against  any  attempt  at  regeneration 
by  man-made  law  instead  of  by  spiritual 
processes ;  and  I  would  not  seem  to  fail  in 
reverence  to  that  best  and  greatest  of  all 
miracles,  the  redeeming  life  of  God  in  the 
soul.  I  believe,  in  the  brave  words  of  Dr. 
Wines,  spoken  at  the  International  Prison 
Congress  after  forty  years  of  labour  for  prison 
reform,  that  "reformation  is  never  accom 
plished  until  the  heart  has  been  reached  and 
regenerated  by  the  grace  of  Almighty  God." 
I  also  believe  that  our  neglect  of  the  living 
conditions  of  the  poor  has  raised  barriers  be 
tween  them  and  that  grace  which  can  no 
more  be  removed  by  prayer  alone,  or  by 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     135 

faith  not  "  made  whole  with  deed,"  than 
weeds  could  be  removed  from  a  corn  field  by 
the  same  process.  To  destroy  those  barriers 
by  arousing  a  community  conscience,  and 
recording  its  awakening  in  community  action 
expressed  in  statutory  law,  is  more  religious 
by  far  than  any  amount  of  prayer  for  the 
salvation  of  the  poor  offered  by  folk  who  go 
home  to  idleness.  We  have  thrown  on  the 
poor,  and  on  God's  grace,  responsibility  for 
the  results  of  our  own  sins  of  neglect :  and 
until  the  churches  shoulder  their  share  of  re 
sponsibility  for  community  conditions  which 
defy  the  Bible  law  of  human  brotherhood 
here  and  now,  I  do  not  believe  they  will 
make  any  great  headway,  in  the  world  out 
side  their  borders,  in  preaching  the  father 
hood  of  God  or  salvation  for  the  world  to 
come. 

Where,  then,  should  one  apply  the  hoe  in 
order  to  earn  the  right  to  pray  unashamed 
for  a  harvest  of  salvation  among  the  poor  ? 

The  matters  of  housing  and  sanitation 
have  been  already  touched  upon ;  inade 
quately,  yet  enough,  I  trust,  to  set  wiser 
minds  than  my  own  to  thinking,  and  stronger 
hands  to  work.  Next  to  it,  and  closely  con 
nected  with  it,  is  the  fundamental  question  of 
recreation. 


136          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

The  negations  of  life  are  the  deadly  things. 
Overt  acts  of  wrong  have  inflicted  untold 
miseries  in  every  age  ;  yet  for  blight  upon 
humanity  at  large  they  cannot  compare  with 
the  steady,  persistent,  accumulated  results  of 
perfectly  respectable  neglects.  And  the  neg 
lect  of  the  human  desire  for  recreation,  age 
long,  world-wide,  has  been  so  often  not 
merely  respectable,  but  a  virtue  of  the  high 
est  standing  !  We  have  talked  much  of  the 
universal  instinct  for  God,  so  evident  even 
among  savages  ;  and  we  have  based  on  it 
one  of  our  strongest  arguments  for  the  exist 
ence  of  a  God :  to  such  universal  need,  we 
say,  there  must  be  somewhere  an  answer ; 
the  existence  of  the  need  demands  it.  But 
in  this  universal  play-instinct,  common  to  all 
races  and  all  time,  we  have  found  no  proof 
of  a  need  that  demands  an  answer,  no  trace 
of  a  wise  Creator's  handiwork,  nothing  at 
all  of  design.  For  centuries  it  was  merely 
an  elfish  trick  of  youth,  to  be  as  nearly  sup 
pressed  as  possible,  being  dangerously  akin 
to  the  devil  and  all  his  works.  And  even 
now  many  affectionate  and  otherwise  intelli 
gent  parents  regard  it  as  a  part  of  their  chil 
dren's  childhood  and  youth  merely,  to  be 
lived  through  until  that  safe  stage  of  matu 
rity  be  reached  where  children  become  sober 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     137 

and  sensible,  and  put  away  childish  things. 
Many  provide  dolls  and  balls  because  they 
enjoy  giving  their  children  pleasure,  but 
with  little  idea  that  the  love  of  play  is  almost 
the  greatest  *  formative  power  in  a  child's  life, 
and  that  by  it  he  may  be  shaped  to  the  high 
est  ideals,  the  widest  usefulness,  or  be  de 
graded  to  the  level  of  the  beast. 

It  is  not  merely  that  a  child  coordinates  his 
muscles  and  mind  in  play  ;  he  coordinates  his 
entire  being  with  the  world  about  him  in 
play  that  is  wisely  directed.  He  finds  him 
self  as  a  citizen  of  his  world.  In  team-play, 
in  the  give  and  take  of  success  and  defeat, 
in  fair  play  and  respect  for  the  rules  of  the 
game,  he  learns  self-control,  respect  for  the 
rights  of  others,  the  adjustment  of  his  own 
personality  to  those  about  him,  and  a  deep 
regard  for  law  and  justice. 

All  these  things  are  fundamental  to  a  law- 
abiding,  honest  life.  In  families  of  several 
children,  where  the  mother  is  willing  and 
able  to  share  the  play  life  of  the  children, 
they  may  learn  these  things  at  home,  even 
in  cramped  quarters  and  under  unfavourable 
conditions  :  but  few  poor  children  have  moth 
ers  of  leisure.  There  is  no  place  for  their 
play  in  the  cluttered  house,  or  in  the  diminu 
tive  yard  some  poor  people  are  fortunate 


138          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

enough  to  own.  In  the  cities  the  streets  are 
the  playgrounds  of  the  poor.  They  are  such 
for  our  poor,  the  Negroes.  There  is  little 
play  possible  there,  even  in  smaller  cities, 
that  fits  their  need.  Besides,  few  of  them 
know  how  to  play,  in  city  or  country.  The 
play-instinct  has  been  perverted  or  suppressed 
so  long  that  its  natural  outlet,  with  many  of 
them,  seems  closed,,  They  are  not  peculiar 
in  this :  they  have  simply  suffered  the  dep 
rivation  of  a  deep  human  need,  as  children 
of  the  very  poor  have  done  elsewhere ;  and 
they  react  under  the  unnatural  condition  ex 
actly  as  does  all  the  rest  of  humanity  in  a 
similar  situation. 

There  are  certain  laws  of  spiritual  physics 
which  are  universal  in  their  operation,  and 
which  seem  closely  akin  to  the  physics  of 
matter.  One  can  compress  the  air,  guide  it 
according  to  its  own  laws  in  prepared  chan 
nels,  and  work  with  it  miracles  of  usefulness. 
One  can  compress  it  with  no  outlet  at  all, 
and  defy  the  law  of  its  nature  up  to  a  certain 
point.  After  that,  something  goes  to  smash. 
Those  are  facts  at  the  North  Pole,  and  at  the 
South  Pole,  and  everywhere  in  between. 
Similarly,  one  can  take  this  race-wide  play- 
instinct,  and  guide  it  according  to  its  own 
law  of  development  to  the  building  up  of 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     139 

body  and  soul  far  above  the  danger-line  of 
human  ruin.  Also,  one  can  suppress  it  with 
impunity — for  a  certain  length  of  time.  But 
like  the  air,  it  has  to  go  somewhere  ;  and  if  it 
cannot  go  the  safe  way,  it  will  take  some 
other :  the  energy  which  creates  it  must  be 
expressed.  To  this  crude  young  need  with 
no  adequate  outlet  all  sorts  of  illicit  adven 
tures  proffer  their  irresistible  lure — petty 
thefts,  trials  of  brute  strength,  the  aping  of 
older  folk  in  obscene  talk  and  vicious  deeds, 
"  crap-playing  "  in  the  streets,  the  smoking 
of  cigarettes,  surreptitious  drinking,  the  steal 
ing  of  older  people's  "  dope." 

We  understand  here  in  the  South,  those  of 
us  who  are  somewhat  interested  in  such  mat 
ters,  that  these  are  proven  facts  concerning 
the  gangs  of  young  toughs  in  Northern 
slums.  It  is  perfectly  reasonable  to  quite  a 
number  of  us  that  a  baseball  ground  and  a 
boys'  club,  or  an  organization  of  Boy  Scouts, 
will  transform  a  crowd  of  budding  white 
criminals  into  decent  young  humans  who  de 
light  to  obey  the  law  and  to  require  their 
companions  to  do  likewise  :  but  it  does  not 
seem  to  occur  to  us,  as  yet,  that  this  law  of 
the  gang  is  operative  except  where  humanity 
has  a  white  skin.  So  instead  of  buying  play 
grounds  for  our  poor  with  our  taxes,  and 


140          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

furnishing  trained  directors  of  play  for  them, 
we  take  many  times  the  sum -needed  for  this 
simple  provision  for  a  normal  need,  and  build 
great  court-houses  with  it,  filled  with  expen 
sive  machinery,  human  and  other,  of  what 
we  are  pleased  to  call  justice ;  and  put  up 
endless  local  jails,  every  one  of  which  is 
guaranteed,  by  every  law  of  spiritual  dy 
namics,  to  poison  the  folk  put  into  it,  and  to 
smother  their  impulses  towards  a  better  life. 
And  then  we  sit  down  and  commiserate  our 
selves  for  being  burdened  with  a  people  so 
bent  by  nature  towards  crime. 

In  the  summer  of  1912,  in  a  Southern  city, 
afternoon  playgrounds  for  Negro  children 
were  opened  by  the  combined  efforts  of  a  few 
people  of  both  races.  Negro  women  of  force 
and  ability  were  engaged  to  supervise  them, 
and  the  whole  venture  was  under  the  direc 
tion  of  a  Southern  white  woman,  a  graduate 
of  her  own  state  university  and  of  Columbia. 
The  children  gathered  in  the  playgrounds 
like  flies.  None  of  them  knew  how  to  play, 
but  they  were  still  plastic  with  childhood, 
and  responded  as  childhood  everywhere  does 
from  the  North  Pole  to  the  South.  But  older 
children  came  too — gangs  of  adolescent  boys 
whose  only  idea  of  "  fun "  was  to  torment 
folk  weaker  than  themselves,  and  to  smash 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PEEVENTION     141 

up  whatever  afforded  others  pleasure.  They 
were  a  whole  battalion  of  thorns  in  the  flesh 
all  summer  long.  The  white  women  con 
cerned,  having  exhausted  their  own  re 
sources,  appealed  to  the  local  Y.  M.  C.  A., 
and  to  the  pastors  of  several  of  the  churches, 
for  a  white  man  who  would  take  the  gang  in 
charge  and  organize  its  members  as  a  con 
structive  force  in  their  community.  But 
though  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  director  and  the 
pastors  tried  diligently  to  find  a  man  to  un 
dertake  the  task,  nobody  was  forthcoming ; 
and  the  group  continues  its  boisterous  career 
towards  the  chain-gang,  where  so  many  of  us 
believe  Negroes  gravitate  by  their  own  na 
ture  rather  than  by  our  neglect. 

But  children  are  only  the  beginning  of  the 
story.  The  play  instinct  is  not  an  evanes 
cent  appurtenance  of  childhood:  it  is  deep 
down  among  the  primal  needs  of  life,  as  real 
and  as  persistent  as  the  need  for  air  or  food. 
We  educated  white  people  are  perfectly 
aware  of  our  own  need  for  recreation.  We 
turn  to  the  woods  and  the  mountains,  to  golf 
and  tennis,  fishing  and  camping,  whenever 
we  can  possibly  afford  it,  and  just  as  long  as 
we  live.  In  between  whiles  we  go  to  the 
theatre  and  the  "  movies,"  to  baseball  and 
football  games,  to  the  parks,  on  motoring 


142          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

trips — any  and  everywhere  that  promises  us 
a  break  in  the  monotony  of  life,  a  bit  of  re 
laxation,  a  little  laughter.  We  begin  to  un 
derstand  that  the  need  of  these  things  is 
bedded  so  deep  in  the  nature  of  white  people 
that  wage  earners  are  actually  more  profit 
able  to  their  employers,  in  dollars  and  cents, 
if  they  get  their  bit  of  vacation  in  summer 
time.  It  has  long  been  customary  in  the 
North,  and  grows  yearly  more  common  with 
us,  to  give  clerks  and  salespeople  two- weeks' 
playtime  a  year,  with  pay ;  to  close  depart 
ment  stores  at  noon  on  Saturdays  in  summer  ; 
to  let  everybody  off  on  holidays.  We  are 
learning  to  do  it  not  simply  because  we  want 
other  people  to  enjoy  themselves,  but  because 
our  enlightened  selfishness  is  becoming  con 
vinced  that  a  workman  who  never  plays  can 
never  do  the  most  efficient  work. 

But  it  has  not  occurred  to  us  that  natural 
laws  have  no  special  editions  for  skins  of  dif 
ferent  colours.  There  are,  of  course,  as  many 
kinds  of  pleasure  as  there  are  individual  na 
tures  ;  and  some  of  them  require  not  only 
certain  temperaments,  but  certain  stages  of 
intellectual  advancement,  for  their  enjoyment. 
No  one  would  claim  that  a  slum  Negro  could 
be  interested  for  a  moment  in  much  that 
would  give  a  cultivated  white  man  the  keen- 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     143 

est  pleasure.  But  a  need  common  to  all 
humanity  has  somewhere  an  answer  suited 
to  each  man's  stage  of  development ;  an  an 
swer  clean,  healthful,  and  life-giving :  and 
they  who  withhold  it  do  so  to  their  own 
peril  as  well  as  to  the  injury  of  him  who 
needs. 

The  poor  of  every  nation  need  play  more 
than  any  other  class,  and  are  more  injured  by 
the  lack  of  it.  What  else  drives  New  York's 
wage-earning  girls,  by  scores  of  thousands,  to 
the  low  dance-halls  of  commercialized  pleas 
ure  ?  They  would  rather  go  to  decent  places, 
as  is  shown  by  the  way  they  crowd  the  few 
which  are  provided  :  but  recreation  they  must 
have,  or  snap  under  the  daily  strain  of  work. 
Young  men  flock  to  the  same  places,  decent 
fellows  to  begin  with,  often,  pitifully  eager 
to  meet  "  some  nice  girl."  But  the  associa 
tions  are  too  much  for  their  unguarded  youth. 
It  is  the  exhilaration  of  the  liquor  they  drink 
which  lures  them,  not  its  taste.  They  want 
that  glorious  sense  of  freedom  which  is  its 
first  effect,  that  power  to  rise  in  a  tumult  of 
life  and  energy  above  all  that  cramps  them  in 
their  sordid  daily  lives.  It  is  the  excitement 
of  gambling  that  draws  them — the  ecstasy  of 
bated  breath,  of  pulses  that  throb  and  thrill. 
They  never  intend  to  wreck  their  lives  ;  only 


144         IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

to  bring  into  their  poor  dull  colourlessness  a 
little  of  sheen  and  glamour  and  fire.  The 
lower  they  are  in  the  economic  and  the  moral 
scale,  in  every  city  of  every  land,  the  bleaker 
and  duller  their  empty  lives,  the  more  fiercely 
this  need  drives  them.  A  man  with  a  few  of 
the  comforts  of  life,  a  few  inward  resources 
— only  a  few — may  walk  without  pleasure, 
maimed  indeed,  but  in  a  straight  path,  to 
the  end.  But  he  who  has  nothing,  within 
or  without,  neither  resource  nor  help,  what 
shall  he  do,  with  only  his  blank,  dead  life  of 
drudgery,  and  his  fierce  human  need  for  a  lit 
tle  joy  ? 

It  is  so  simple  it  breaks  one's  heart.  Such 
utter  wreckage,  such  ruin  and  waste  and  deg 
radation,  such  lapsing  of  men  into  beastli 
ness — and  all  for  lack  of  a  thing  like  this,  a 
simple  human  answer  to  a  vital  human  need  ! 

Sometimes  when  I  think  about  us — us 
Southern  white  folks — I  don't  know  whether 
to  laugh  or  to  cry.  We  are  good  people. 
I've  associated  with  us  all  my  life,  and  I  know 
that  is  true.  Ideals  stir  us  as  nothing  else 
does.  If  there  is  anything  Southern  people 
will  do  it  is  to  spend  themselves  for  an  idea — 
once  they  catch  it.  We  caught  the  temper 
ance  idea  years  ago — it  is  really  the  germ 
of  our  late-developing  social  consciousness 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     145 

— and  we  have  fought  for  it  as  no  other  sec 
tion  of  America  has.  Somehow,  by  the 
blessing  of  Providence,  our  preachers  got 
hold  of  it  by  its  individually  religious  end, 
and  many  of  them  have  not  thought  of  it 
as  "  social  service  "  to  this  day.  So  they 
welcomed  it  to  the  fold  of  orthodoxy,  and 
went  forth  to  fight  for  it  with  never  a  Chris 
tian  to  say  them  nay,  or  to  suggest  that 
social  service  was  no  concern  of  a  church 
dedicated  to  the  preaching  of  "  the  pure  gos 
pel."  As  for  results,  a  look  at  the  wet-and- 
dry  map  of  the  United  States  in  this  present 
year  of  grace  will  show  that  the  South  is  the 
cleanest  part  of  the  map.  We  do  things  just 
that  way. 

But  like  other  grown-ups,  we  are  mightily 
like  children.  A  child  will  clean  up  his  play 
things  in  a  whirl  of  enthusiasm  over  help 
ing  his  mother  ;  and  when  she  comes  in,  by 
invitation,  to  admire  the  results,  she  will 
find  the  rubbish  not  cleaned  up,  but  tucked 
out  of  sight,  and  perhaps  ruining  some  of 
her  most  cherished  finery  in  its  novel  seclu 
sion.  Only  the  obvious  middle  of  the  room 
is  in  order.  We  have  gone  at  the  drink 
habit  just  that  way. 

The  Negro's  propensity  for  drink  does 
trouble  us.  That  is  one  thing  about  his  con- 


146          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

dition  we  are  aware  of.  We  even  feel  the 
menace  to  the  community  which  drunken 
Negroes  furnish  ;  and  we  deplore  a  develop 
ment  still  so  low,  after  all  these  years  of  civi 
lization.  Nothing,  we  say,  will  eradicate  the 
Negro's  love  of  liquor.  (We  do  not  specify 
what  we  have  tried  as  an  eradicator ;  but 
whatever  it  was,  it  hasn't  worked.) 

According  to  our  lights,  however,  and  in 
all  sincerity,  we  have  done  our  duty.  We 
have  passed  local-option  and  prohibition  laws. 
We  have  made  &fiat  sweep  of  the  whole  mis 
erable  liquor  business,  with  a  view,  largely, 
to  removing  from  the  play-hours  of  our  very 
poor,  both  white  and  black,  one  of  their 
three  great  resources,  which  are,  for  both 
colours  in  this  poorest  class,  gambling,  im 
morality  and  drink.  But  what  we  have  taken 
with  one  hand  we  have  given  with  the  other : 
not  something  clean  to  take  the  place  of  the 
unclean  ;  but  the  same  uncleanness  with  the 
added  smirch  of  lawlessness.  In  all  our 
cities  men,  nearly  all  of  whom  are  white,  are 
allowed  to  open  "  near-beer  "  saloons  for  the 
open  selling  of  every  known  intoxicant,  and 
to  make  a  living  from  the  degradation  of  our 
poor,  both  white  and  black,  with  the  consent 
and  protection  of  the  authorities.  When  the 
poor,  who  are  mostly  black,  go  as  the  drink 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     147 

drives  them,  we  dive  into  our  pockets  for 
more  taxes  to  build  larger  court-houses  and 
jails ;  and  the  women,  whom  the  prisoners 
might  have  supported  if  they  had  had  a  bet 
ter  chance  to  stay  sober,  are  left  to  choose  be 
tween  the  streets  for  themselves,  or  work  for 
themselves  and  the  streets  for  their  children. 
And  so  the  manufacture  of  criminals,  one  of 
our  most  stupendous  industries,  and  cer 
tainly  our  most  expensive  luxury,  goes 
bravely  on. 

Prohibition  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  even 
though  in  our  cities  it  does  not  go  at  all. 
But  it  will  never,  by  itself,  do  very  much 
more  than  just  slick  life  up  on  the  outside. 
It  is  a  purely  negative  measure,  a  gigantic 
Thou  shalt  not.  It  has  its  place  in  positive 
life,  as  many  other  negations  have :  but  a 
negation  can  never  construct  anything ;  its 
utmost  is  to  clear  the  ground  for  construction. 
And  if  those  who  clear  the  ground  construct 
nothing,  somebody  else  will.  Human  life, 
being  part  of  nature,  tolerates  no  vacuum. 
Temperance  measures,  to  be  effective,  must 
be  constructive :  they  must  offer  something 
to  take  the  place  of  what  they  have  driven 
out.  Until  the  human  craving  for  relaxation, 
for  exaltation  of  both  body  and  spirit,  be 
cleanly  met,  it  will  spend  itself  on  the  un- 


148          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

clean.  And  out  of  uncleanness  will  come 
waste  and  wreckage,  for  present  and  future 
generations. 

What  is  there  in  the  South  that  offers  clean 
amusement,  clean  play,  to  Negroes  young  or 
old  ?  In  a  recent  investigation  made  by  an 
International  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Secretary,  himself  a 
Southern  man,  four  cities  were  found  having 
public  parks  for  Negroes.  Four  public  parks 
for  Negroes  in  fifteen  Southern  states  !  Out  of 
seventeen  cities  eight  reported  having  picture 
shows  for  Negroes,  and  nine  none.  Of  the 
picture  shows  reported  half  were  "  very  low 
and  degrading,  with  the  vilest  vaudeville 
attachments."  In  five  cities  there  are  theatres 
for  Negroes — character  not  specified  ;  and  in 
several  they  are  allowed  in  the  peanut  gallery 
of  white  theatres  ;  but  the  investigator  reports 
"  the  better  class  of  Negroes  say  they  will  not 
go  unless  for  some  special  attraction,  as  they 
are  put  with  the  lowest  class  of  whites."  The 
report  further  declares  that  the  "principal 
places  of  amusement  for  the  male  population 
[Negro]  are  the  saloons,  pool  and  billiard 
rooms."  The  saloon  people  are  the  quickest 
of  all  whites  to  recognize  the  Negro's  hu 
manity.  They  see  that  Negroes  become 
slaves  of  drink  exactly  as  white  men  do,  and 
spend  their  last  nickel  for  it  in  the  same 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     149 

manner.  In  my  own  city  the  very  large 
majority  of  cases  in  the  recorder's  court  are 
Negroes,  and  nearly  all  their  infractions  of  law 
are  the  results  of  drinking.  The  city  is  in  a 
prohibition  state.  It  contains  eighty  officially 
licensed  near-beer  saloons,  and  seventy-nine 
of  them  are  run  by  white  men.  In  practically 
every  city  of  the  South  we  white  people  set 
this  object  lesson  regarding  respect  for  law 
before  the  Negroes,  and  then  deplore  and 
despise  the  innate  lawlessness  of  the  black 
man's  nature. 

But  if  diversions  other  than  drinking  and 
lewdness  are  hard  for  adult  Negroes  to  come 
by,  what  is  done  for  the  children  ?  Louisville 
has  two  or  three  playgrounds  for  them,  not 
very  well  equipped,  but  under  the  direction  of 
the  City  Park  Commissioner,  as  are  the  far 
ampler  playgrounds  for  white  children  ;  and 
New  Orleans  has  recently  opened  one  with 
semi-official  recognition.  So  far  as  I  can 
learn  these  are  the  only  cities  in  the  South 
which  have  officially  recognized  this  basal 
human  need  as  common  to  white  and  black. 
A  prominent  church  and  club  woman  of 
Nashville  gave  a  playground  to  Negro 
children  in  that  city  a  few  years  ago ;  and 
whites  and  blacks  together  have  now  for  two 
summers  provided  vacation  playgrounds  for 


150          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Negro  children  in  Augusta,  Ga.  That  com 
pletes  the  list  to  date. 

Laying  aside  all  altruistic  motives,  turning 
our  backs  on  Christ's  doctrine  of  human 
brotherhood,  and  acting  solely  from  the 
standpoint  of  enlightened  selfishness,  it  would 
pay  the  South,  just  in  money,  to  put  a  three- 
acre  playground  next  door  to  every  school- 
house  for  both  whites  and  blacks,  and  to  add 
to  the  teaching  force  a  director  of  play  for 
each  county,  under  whose  supervision  the 
teachers  of  the  various  schools  could  in  turn 
assume  charge  of  the  playground  after  school 
hours.  Folk  dances  would  take  the  place  of 
games  with  the  older  children.  We  could 
call  them  folk  games  if  some  of  our  church 
people  looked  askance  at  the  other  word.  If 
the  universal  enjoyment  of  movement  in 
rhythmical  time  could  be  met  in  this  clean 
and  wholesome  fashion  it  would  do  more 
to  undermine  "  animal  dancing "  than  any 
well-deserved  philippic  that  could  be  hurled 
against  it.  The  best  way  to  get  rid  of  an  un 
clean  thing  is  to  put  in  its  place  a  clean  one 
which  meets  the  need. 

The  schoolhouse  should  be  the  recreation 
centre  for  young  and  old.  For  years  great 
corporations  have  been  employing  "social 
engineers  "  to  work  among  their  employees 


AN  OUNCE  OF  PREVENTION     151 

as  a  matter  of  sound  business  policy,  to  bring 
up  the  efficiency  of  the  human  end  of  the 
machine.  A  large  part  of  the  engineer's 
duty  has  lain  in  providing  clean  and  interest 
ing  recreation  for  folk  deadened  by  drudgery. 
Lately  a  city  or  two  has  taken  the  matter  up 
and  appointed  a  city  Superintendent  of  Public 
Recreation,  just  as  they  have  a  Park  Com 
missioner.  There  is  no  sentiment  in  such  an 
act — no  sentimentality,  at  least.  Hard-headed 
business  men  have  done  it,  and  communities 
stand  to  it,  and  pay  the  necessary  taxes  to 
finance  it,  because  it  will  pay  in  human 
character  and  happiness,  and,  in  the  long  run, 
in  dollars  as  well.  So  here  and  yonder,  in 
the  most  unexpected  places,  it  keeps  cropping 
out  in  life  that  what  we  call  Christian  doctrines 
are  not  doctrines  at  all.  They  are  laws  of 
human  life,  and  Christ's,  not  in  the  sense  that 
He  made  them  up,  but  in  the  sense  that  He 
understood  them  and  put  them  into  words. 
When  we  provide  for  the  human  needs  of  the 
weakest,  we  come  not  upon  sacrifice,  but  on 
more  abundant  life  for  all.  For  we  really  are 
brethren,  all  of  us,  and  the  satisfied  need  of 
those  who  lack  is  the  strength  and  prosperity 
of  all. 


V 

HUMAN  WRECKAGE 

BUT  what  of  the  wreckage  already 
achieved  ?  What  of  that  fragment  of 
the  world-wide  ruin  most  in  evidence 
to  our  consciousness — the  criminals,  young 
and  old,  of  both  races,  who  fill  our  Southern 
jails,  and  work  in  all  possible  publicity  of 
disgrace,  chained  and  striped,  upon  our 
streets  ? 

For  thousands  of  years  the  world  has  had 
two  theories  only  about  the  relation  of  the 
state  to  crime.  One  is  the  theory  of  venge 
ance,  originally  the  right  of  the  individual, 
but  as  civilization  progressed  a  right  which 
became  vested  in  the  community.  Among 
Christian  nations  Moses  has  been  set  forth  as 
the  champion  of  this  theory ;  and  "  an  eye 
for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  "  is  still  widely 
quoted  in  justification  of  this  outworn  delu 
sion,  upon  which  the  criminal  law  of  the 
nations  is  founded. 

It  was  doubtless  a  benevolent  law  in  Moses' 
day  which  restricted  vengeance,  not  to  the 
152 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  153 

limit  of  the  avenger's  power,  but  to  that 
rough  justice  which  measured  the  penalty 
by  the  offense.  So  far  as  we  can  decipher 
those  old  records,  and  those  of  far  later  gen 
erations,  to  inject  into  vengeance  an  idea  of 
justice  was  not  the  least  of  the  great  law 
giver's  achievements.  Many,  however,  who 
quote  Moses  with  gusto  seem  unacquainted 
with  later  Biblical  literature,  in  which  the 
exercise  of  vengeance  is  distinctly  declared  to 
be  beyond  the  province  of  mankind. 

Nevertheless,  men  cherish  it  to  this  day  as 
a  sacred  and  inalienable  right.  And  lest 
vengeance  unadorned  should  be  insufficient, 
they  have  embroidered  this  first  theory  with 
the  second — that  punishments  severe  and 
ingenious  beyond  what  vengeance  might 
demand  would  act  as  deterrents  to  criminals 
in  posse.  On  this  altar  of  public  benevolence 
the  criminal  in  esse  is  still  offered  up,  a  use 
less  and  frightful  sacrifice  to  the  blindness 
and  folly  of  men.  It  is  true  the  law  no  longer 
condemns  him  to  be  broken  on  the  wheel, 
nor  burned  with  faggots  of  green  wood,  nor 
tortured  in  many  of  the  thousand  ways  which 
make  the  prison  history  of  the  past  such  black 
reading. 

But  notwithstanding  the  rise  and  spread  of 
a  modern  penology  which  is  already  pro- 


154          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

foundly  influencing  criminal  procedure  in 
many  countries,  the  vast  bulk  of  the  world's 
criminals  are  still  dealt  with  under  a  combina 
tion  of  these  two  theories.  The  criminal  is 
punished  because  punishment  is  his  desert 
and  the  state's  right ;  and  his  degree  of  pun 
ishment  must  be  severe  enough  to  frighten 
anybody  else  from  attempting  a  similar  crime. 
That  severity  of  sentence  does  not  deter 
others  from  crime  is  proven  by  the  criminal 
history  of  many  centuries,  and  has  long  been 
openly  acknowledged  by  authorities  on  crime 
in  all  countries.  It  is  out  of  this  self-confessed 
breakdown  of  the  old  system  that  the  rise  of 
a  new  one  has  become  possible. 

The  foundation  of  the  new  system  is,  in  the 
words  of  the  eminent  chairman  of  the  English 
Prison  Commission,  "  the  accepted  axiom  of 
modern  penology  that  a  prisoner  has  rever 
sionary  rights  in  humanity."  It  regards  a 
man  convicted  of  crime  not  primarily  as  a 
criminal,  but  as  an  individual  who,  "  by  the 
application  of  influences  or  discipline,  labour, 
education,  moral  and  religious,  backed  up  on 
discharge  by  a  well-organized  system  of 
[oversight]  is  capable  of  reinstatement  into 
civic  life."  It  flatly  denies  the  Italian  theory 
of  "  a  criminal  type,"  pronouncing  it  a  su 
perstition,  pure  and  simple.  It  offers  abundant 


HUMAN  WEECKAGE  155 

evidence  that  the  criminal  disposition  is  pro 
duced,  largely  in  individuals  physically  or 
mentally  weak,  by  social  conditions  which 
have  forced  their  lives  along  lines  of  least 
resistance.  It  stands  for  the  reformatory,  for 
the  indeterminate  sentence,  release  on  parole, 
the  permanent  separation  of  prisoners  into 
groups  according  to  type  and  criminal  de 
velopment,  for  education,  moral,  religious 
and  industrial,  for  labour  in  outdoor  life  as 
far  as  practicable,  for  the  abolition  of  prison 
stripes,  and  everything  calculated  to  break 
down  self-respect,  and  for  life-detention  of  all 
who  cannot  be  restored  to  society  in  safety 
to  the  community  and  to  themselves. 

Twenty-two  nations  were  officially  repre 
sented  in  the  last  International  Prison  Con 
gress,  which  met  in  Washington  City  three 
years  ago ;  three  additional  governments, 
Spain,  the  Transvaal,  and  Egypt,  signified 
their  desire  to  join  ;  and  negotiations  were 
opened  with  the  governments  of  China  and 
Japan  which  indicate  that  at  the  next  Con 
gress  representatives  of  those  governments 
will  take  their  place  in  the  body  as  members, 
instead  of  taking  part  unofficially,  as  hereto 
fore.  The  members  of  this  Congress  differed, 
as  might  be  supposed,  on  many  points  :  but 
they  stood  as  a  body  for  the  principles  of 


156          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

the  new  penology  above  stated.  They  also 
endorsed  the  principle  that  payment  should 
be  allowed  the  prisoner  by  the  state  for  his 
work  over  and  above  the  sum  necessary  for 
his  own  support ;  and  that  this  remainder 
should  be  turned  over  to  the  prisoner's  family 
if  in  need. 

A  point  of  deepest  significance  to  Ameri 
cans,  North  and  South,  was  the  unanimous 
conviction  of  all  the  delegates,  home  and 
foreign,  that  American  local  jails  were  the 
worst  known  to  civilization.  The  United 
States  government  placed  a  special  train  at 
the  disposal  of  the  foreign  delegates,  and 
acted  as  their  host  during  a  tour  of  investi 
gation  which  covered  most  of  the  country's 
great  reformatories,  adult  and  juvenile,  and 
many  local  jails.  It  is  said  that  the  Tombs, 
in  New  York  City,  reduced  the  foreigners  to 
speechlessness.  One  of  the  most  eminent 
said  afterwards  that  the  only  thing  to  do 
with  it  was  to  tear  it  down  ;  but  the  others 
found  words  incompatible  with  the  minimum 
of  politeness  necessary  in  the  presence  of  a 
host.  The  secretary  of  the  Howard  Asso 
ciation  of  London,  when  asked,  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  say  that  every  jail  he  saw  in  America 
"  ought  to  be  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  earth," 
and  that  "  nowhere  in  Europe  do  such  con- 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  157 

ditions  exist."  The  newly-elected  president 
of  the  Congress,  Sir  Evelyn  Ruggles-Brise, 
in  extending  an  invitation  for  the  next  meet 
ing  to  be  held  in  England,  begged  the  Amer 
icans  "  out  of  their  humanity  "  to  consider 
the  case  of  "  the  thousands  of  petty  offenders 
now  passing  through  your  city  and  county 
jails  in  such  appalling  numbers." 

The  reformatories  of  a  few  of  the  Northern 
states  confessedly  lead  the  world,  and  the 
principles  of  human  restoration  which  they 
have  demonstrated  are  spreading  to  the 
states  of  the  West ;  but  we  of  the  South  lag 
behind  in  every  phase  of  reformatory  and 
preventive  work.  The  only  point  at  which 
we  are  strictly  up  with  the  procession  is  in 
the  matter  of  our  local  jails.  They  are  like 
those  of  the  rest  of  America,  well  adapted  to 
the  one  specific  end  of  manufacturing  crimi 
nals  out  of  that  vast  company  of  petty  of 
fenders  not  yet  beyond  the  pale  of  citizen 
ship. 

I  was  talking  with  a  friend  not  long  ago 
about  a  certain  local  jail.  A  white  woman 
who  had  once  worked  for  her  had  been  ar 
rested  on  some  charge,  and  had  appealed  to 
her  for  help.  She  had  gone  to  the  jail  with 
a  lawyer,  a  friend  of  hers,  but  had  been  re 
fused  permission  to  see  the  prisoner.  The 


158          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

lawyer  had  been  passed  in  at  once,  but  the 
jailer  stopped  my  friend. 

"  No,  ma'am,"  he  declared  with  respectful 
positiveness  ;  "  you  can't  go  in  there.  It  ain't 
no  place  for  a  lady  to  be  in,  nor  to  see.  It 
ain't  fit." 

"  And  he  had  a  white  woman  in  there  !  " 
exclaimed  my  friend  ;  "a  white  woman,  in  a 
place  unfit  for  a  lady  even  to  see !  I  told  him 
if  she  could  stand  staying  in  it  I  could  stand 
seeing  it,  but  he  wouldn't  let  me  in." 

I  sympathized  with  her  indignation  :  but 
was  it  any  better  for  a  black  woman  than  for 
a  white  one  ?  The  white  woman  should  have 
had  a  little  better  chance  than  the  other  to 
resist  the  moral  contagion  of  the  place,  and 
should  have  been  less  of  a  menace  to  the 
community  when  she  came  out.  But  the 
Negroes,  and  many,  too,  of  the  whites,  if 
they  ever  had  a  chance  before  the  law  grips 
them,  lose  it  in  the  jail  the  law  provides  ; 
lose  it  before  they  are  even  proven  guilty  of 
the  crime  with  which  they  are  charged.  Men 
grown  old  in  crime  and  debauchery  are,  in 
nearly  all  our  jails,  thrown  with  first  offend 
ers,  often  with  mere  boys.  The  accommoda 
tions  provided  for  unconvicted  American  citi 
zens  violate  the  laws  of  decency  and  health 
in  regard  to  the  commonest  physical  needs. 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  159 

There  is  no  privacy,  no  cleanliness.  Every 
thing  in  his  surroundings  combines  to  brand 
on  the  offender's  consciousness  the  fact  that 
he  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  being  with  hu 
man  rights,  reversionary  or  otherwise.  His 
relation  to  life  is  purely  that  of  the  committer 
of  a  crime. 

He  may  be  just  a  boy,  his  offense  a  trifle ; 
or,  if  more  serious,  the  outcome,  not  of  pre 
meditated  wickedness,  but  of  a  thwarted  love 
of  adventure,  youth's  natural  flare  of  high 
spirits  turned  awry.  In  some  of  our  cities 
such  an  offender  would  get  what  he  needs — 
separate  confinement  beforehand,  and  an  in 
vestigation,  rather  than  a  trial  before  a  spe 
cially  constituted  court.  A  real  effort  would 
be  made  to  understand  not  what  the  boy  did, 
but  why  he  did  it ;  and  after  being  dealt  with 
by  the  judge  on  that  line  chiefly,  he  would  be 
turned  over  to  a  probation  officer  whose  duty 
it  would  be  to  watch  over  him,  and  assist  him 
to  moral  convalescence.  The  law  should 
give  the  judge,  as  it  does  in  Denver,  certain 
powers  to  enforce,  if  necessary,  parental  co 
operation  in  helping  the  boy,  and  in  correct 
ing  wrong  home  conditions.  With  the  right 
kind  of  judges  and  probation  officers  a  vast 
deal  of  human  wreckage  is  prevented  by 
these  courts. 


160          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

But  we  have  few  of  them  in  the  South  : 
and  there  is  little  of  the  kind  of  care  needed 
given  to  young  Negro  delinquents.  In  what 
I  am  told  is  one  of  the  best-managed  juvenile 
courts  of  the  South  the  probation  officers  for 
the  Negro  children  are  Negro  women.  That 
is  an  immense  improvement  on  the  old  chain- 
gang  way,  of  course;  but  adolescent  boys, 
white  or  black,  will  not  be  very  profoundly 
influenced  by  anything  or  anybody  feminine. 
They  need  a  man,  and  a  wise  one. 

In  only  a  few  places,  however,  does  the 
matter  of  probation  come  up.  For  the  ma 
jority  of  our  lawbreakers,  young  and  old, 
one  sure  destination  waits — the  chain-gang, 
sometimes  more  euphemistically  known  as 
the  convict  camp.  Here  prisoners  of  all 
degrees  of  criminality  are  thrown  promiscu 
ously  together,  and  clothed  in  stripes  to 
advertise  them  to  all  beholders  as  outlaws 
from  the  human  family.  They  wear  individ 
ual  chains  in  the  daytime,  which  are  fastened 
together  at  night.  And  they  endure  what 
ever  of  suffering,  degradation,  insult  and 
injustice  their  individual  keepers  choose  to 
bestow  upon  them. 

A  Southern  Bishop,  living  in  one  of  our 
largest  cities,  recently  had  a  visit  from  a 
white  man  in  a  dirty,  frowsy,  unkempt  suit, 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  161 

who  announced  himself  as  a  convict  dis 
charged  forty-eight  hours  before  from  the  coal 
mines  near  by,  which  are  worked  by  convict 
labour.  Being  questioned,  he  admitted  that 
he  had  eaten  but  twice  since  his  discharge. 
A  Negro  had  given  him  some  corn  bread  the 
first  day,  and  a  barkeeper  on  the  next  had 
given  him  a  sandwich  and  a  drink  of  whiskey. 
He  refused  the  food  and  money  the  Bishop 
offered  him.  He  had  come,  he  said,  to  tell 
the  story  of  what  was  done  to  the  prisoners 
in  those  mines ;  he  had  promised  the  other 
convicts  before  he  left  that  he  would  carry 
the  story  to  some  Christian,  and  see  if  he 
would  take  the  matter  up.  If  he  took  any 
thing  for  himself,  he  said,  it  might  cast 
suspicion  on  his  tale. 

He  was  a  well-educated  man.  He  said  he 
had  been  an  editor.  A  wrong  had  been  done 
to  a  member  of  his  family  ;  in  a  blaze  of  anger 
he  had  shot  and  killed  the  offender;  and  he 
had  been  sentenced  to  three  years  at  hard 
labour,  which  he  had  served. 

The  men  were  worked  in  gangs,  under 
convict  foremen,  and  each  gang  was  assessed 
so  many  tons  per  day.  If  they  mined  more 
they  were  credited  with  the  excess,  to  be  paid 
for  it  when  they  left  the  camp.  All  credits, 
however,  were  given  by  the  foremen,  them- 


162          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

selves  convicts  ;  and  they  could,  and  did,  give 
the  credits,  not  to  those  who  earned  them, 
but  to  those  who  shared  with  their  overseers, 
or  bribed  them  in  other  ways.  The  foremen 
carried  horrible  whips ;  and  they  used  them 
constantly,  unmercifully,  without  warning  and 
without  provocation.  Men  were  beaten  and 
kicked  and  injured  until  it  was  not  at  all  an 
unknown  thing,  the  convict  said,  for  a  man  to 
put  his  left  hand  on  the  train  rail  and  let  the 
coal  car  run  over  it  and  crush  it  off.  Then 
he  had  to  be  sent  to  some  other  camp,  being 
useless  for  mining.  It  might  be  just  as  bad, 
of  course ;  but  there  was  always  a  chance. 
This  convict  had  stuck  it  out.  He  had  been 
told  that  he  had  no  overtime  pay  coming  to 
him.  He  had  received  the  clothes  he  wore, 
taken  from  some  newly-entered  convict,  in 
stead  of  the  new  suit  required  by  law,  and 
had  been  turned  out,  penniless,  to  go  back  to 
the  world  in  newness  of  life,  and  conduct 
himself  in  such  an  irreproachable  manner, 
after  the  lesson  he  had  had,  as  not  to  get  into 
a  convict  camp  again. 

The  Bishop  told  his  story  quietly,  as  his 
habit  is,  while  we  sat  gasping. 

"  What  did  you  do?"  we  demanded. 

"  I  made  him  take  a  little  money,  for  one 
thing — as  a  loan.  He  wouldn't  take  much  : 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  163 

but  I  followed  him  down  the  street  and 
begged  till  he  had  to  take  a  little.  And  I 
talked  to  some  men  who  have  influence. 
There  is  a  public  meeting  called  for  the 
seventeenth.  There  will  be  men  from  all 
over  the  state,  and  I  think  the  matter  will  be 
probed  to  the  bottom.  We  may  get  our 
state  laws  reformed  before  we  get  through." 

But  one  state  is  not  enough.  In  my  own 
state,  which  is  not  the  one  of  the  Bishop's 
convict,  the  leaders  of  the  Men  and  Religion 
Movement  in  our  capital  city  have  published 
a  list  of  the  barbarities  of  our  convict  camps 
which  sound  like  the  Middle  Ages.  Twenty 
years  ago,  in  the  same  state,  an  investigator 
appointed  by  the  Governor  reported  exactly 
the  same  conditions.  And  these  states  are 
not  behind  some  of  the  others.  Four  of  our 
states,  however — Kentucky,  Missouri,  Ten 
nessee  and  Texas — are  in  the  honour  list  of 
twenty-one  states  which  have  adopted  the 
indeterminate  sentence  and  the  parole  law  ; 
yet  three  of  these  retain  the  convict  lease  or 
convict  labour  system.  In  a  few  states  the 
Governor  has  power  to  restore  citizenship  to 
a  discharged  convict.  But  in  Texas,  Ken 
tucky  and  Tennessee  no  man  convicted  of 
crime  remains  an  outlaw  except  by  his  own 
will.  Citizenship  is  restored  by  law  to  every 


164          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

convicted  criminal  who,  after  due  testing  when 
released  on  parole,  proves  worthy  of  that 
trust.  The  last  taint  of  his  sin  is  cast  behind 
him  by  the  law,  and  he  takes  his  place  again, 
a  man  among  men.  "  As  far  as  the  east  is 

from  the  west ."     Isn't  that  the  normal 

way,  the  way  that  works  because  men  are 
made  to  respond  to  it  ? 

I  was  waiting  at  a  railroad  station  not  long 
ago  when  a  frightened-looking  Negro  boy  of 
about  eighteen  came  by  in  the  custody  of 
three  big  policemen,  who  stood  guard  about 
him  till  the  patrol  wagon  appeared  and  swal 
lowed  him  up.  After  the  crowd  dispersed  I 
learned  from  one  of  the  policemen  that  the 
boy  had  been  caught  in  the  act  of  stealing  a 
box  of  cigars.  The  policeman  thought  he 
would  get  fifteen  years  for  it ;  but  seeing  my 
horror,  and  wishing,  evidently,  to  oblige  a 
lady  if  possible,  he  reconsidered  the  matter 
and  said  maybe  he  would  get  off  with  ten 
years,  seeing  he  was  not  really  grown.  I  re 
membered  the  boy  who  was  sentenced  to 
three  years  for  taking  eleven  dollars  and 
forty-six  cents  :  but  that  judge  had  especially 
pointed  out  that  the  sentence  was  unusually 
merciful.  This  boy's  judge  might  well  give 
him  ten  years  of  enforced  criminal  associa 
tion  for  his  theft :  there  was  no  telling. 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  165 

I  remembered  another  time,  some  years 
ago,  when  I  was  waiting  for  another  train,  at 
a  junction  in  the  mountains  of  a  Southern 
state.  The  county  sheriff  was  waiting  also, 
with  two  white  boys  of  seventeen  or  eight 
een,  moonshiners.  The  boys  were  chained 
together  by  their  wrists  and  by  their  necks, 
with  what  looked  like  trace-chains.  The 
sheriff  had  evidently  imbibed  their  whiskey, 
probably  for  safe-keeping.  He  swaggered 
about,  a  coarse,  not  ill-tempered  man,  a  pis 
tol  protruding  from  either  pocket  of  his  coat. 
He  talked  loudly,  joking  the  boys  about  their 
capture  and  the  becomingness  of  their  pres 
ent  adornments.  They  tried  hard  to  imitate 
his  manner,  and  to  wear  an  air  of  jaunty  and 
amused  indifference ;  but  their  eyes  were 
frightened  and  ashamed. 

Oh,  the  folly  of  it!  The  blind,  stupid, 
brutal  uselessness  of  it,  the  wicked  waste  of 
human  lives  and  souls  ! 

What  had  any  of  these  boys,  white  or 
black,  done,  in  their  isolation,  their  igno 
rance,  their  stunted  moral  growth,  unfriended, 
untaught — what  had  they  done  which  gave 
society  the  right  to  seize  their  poor,  starved 
lives  and  break  and  poison  them  in  its  foul 
prisons  beyond  hope  of  recovery  for  all  time  ? 
Even  if  we  had  the  right,  what  good  does  it 


166          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

do  ?  The  veriest  madman  out  of  Bedlam 
would  hardly  claim  that  our  convict  camps 
benefit  the  prisoners :  but  do  they  deter 
others  from  crime  ? 

The  census  of  the  United  States  can  an 
swer  that  question  ;  and  the  prison  records 
of  all  civilized  countries  will  join  with  the 
penologists  of  the  world  in  confirming  what 
the  census  says.  Every  year  a  vast  number 
of  arrests  are  made,  and  a  less  vast  number 
of  prisoners  are  discharged.  Less  vast. 
Each  year  our  prison  population  receives  an 
added  permanent  deposit  from  this  great 
stream  of  human  misery  and  ignorance  and 
sin,  as  it  washes  through  those  black  and 
awful  places  where  men  already  injured  are 
permanently  deformed.  Such  measures  have 
never  lessened  crime  :  they  provoke  it  al 
ways,  everywhere,  since  prisons  were.  The 
more  cruelly  or  publicly  a  crime  is  punished 
the  more  surely  it  drives  suggestion  home  to 
some  ill-balanced  nature,  and  rouses  it  to  im 
itation.  The  punishment  seems  to  add  the 
last  irresistible  attraction  to  those  on  the 
border  of  criminality. 

So  far  from  stopping  crime,  our  present 
system,  with  its  public  and  private  humilia 
tions  of  the  offender,  propagates  crime  in  both 
the  criminal  and  the  beholder.  Whatever 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  167 

beats  down  a  prisoner's  remnants  of  self-re 
spect  is  a  blow  not  only  at  his  manhood,  but 
at  the  manhood  of  the  state.  Our  prisons 
are  great  spawning-beds,  where  the  crime  of 
the  community  is  gathered  in  that  the  crime 
of  the  state  may  pass  over  it  and  fructify  it, 
sending  out  swarms  of  new  evil  influences  to 
squirm  and  twist  and  spread  in  all  the  ooze 
and  slime  of  the  community,  that  our  crimi 
nal  supply  may  never  fail. 

We  need  more  rational  methods  in  our 
whole  criminal  procedure.  When  one  has 
scarlet  fever  or  diphtheria  one  is  quarantined, 
not  for  a  specified  time,  but  until  one  can  be 
safely  restored  to  community  life,  as  shown 
by  one's  personal  condition.  The  criminal 
must  also  be  treated  as  an  individual.  Some 
thing  must  be  learned  of  his  heredity,  his 
environment,  the  causes  which  led  to  his 
crime.  Only  so  may  one  attempt  his  resto 
ration.  To  expect  to  attain  it  on  any  other 
basis  than  the  one  of  sympathetic  understand 
ing  is  as  unreasonable  as  to  expect  one 
course  of  treatment  to  cure  every  form  of 
disease.  Even  the  same  disease  requires  dif 
ferent  treatment  for  different  cases ;  and  to 
fix  the  term  of  a  man's  imprisonment  by  the 
crime  he  has  committed  is  to  ignore  the 
dominating  factor  in  the  case — his  personal- 


168          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

ity.  His  personality,  not  his  past  offense, 
makes  him  a  social  menace.  He  should  be 
imprisoned  as  long,  and  only  as  long,  as  his 
personality  threatens  danger  to  the  commu 
nity. 

Dean  Kirchwey,  of  the  Faculty  of  Law 
of  Columbia  University,  in  a  great  address  on 
"  Ending  the  Reign  of  Terror  "  said  : 

"A  demonstration  of  the  fact,  which  we 
may  well  consider  indubitable,  that  criminal 
conduct  is  usually,  if  not  always,  the  result  of 
conditions  more  or  less  beyond  the  control 
of  the  delinquent,  cannot  fail  to  shake  the 
theory  of  moral  responsibility  upon  which  the 
vindictive  idea  of  punishment  is  based,  as 
well  as  to  allay  and  in  time  overcome  the  feel 
ing  of  resentment  which  such  conduct  now 
excites.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  a  study  of 
the  psychology  of  the  mob,  and  of  the  reac 
tion  of  the  existing  penal  system  on  the  moral 
sense  of  the  community  will  show  how  far  it 
is  safe  to  go  in  mitigating  the  rigours  of  the 
criminal  law  in  a  given  jurisdiction  .  .  . 
[until]  such  time  as  may  be  required  to  bring 
the  community  to  a  better  appreciation  of 
the  nature  of  crime,  and  the  conditions  which 
determine  it.  ... 

"  The  doctrine  that  punishment  is  inflicted 
on  the  offender  as  a  warning  to  others  has 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  169 

come  to  be  the  orthodox  view.  .  .  .  There 
is  something  touching  in  the  unquestioning 
faith  of  the  legal  profession  and  of  the  man 
in  the  street  in  the  efficacy  of  this  vicarious 
suffering  for  crimes  not  yet  committed.  Yet 
it  remains  a  matter  of  faith  as  yet  unsupported 
by  evidence.  .  .  . 

"  The  fact  that  a  very  large  proportion — in 
some  countries  more  than  fifty  per  cent. — of 
criminals  under  confinement  have  previously 
undergone  prison  punishment  seems  to  indi 
cate  that  as  a  deterrent  punishment  by 
imprisonment  leaves  something  to  be  de 
sired.  .  .  . 

"  The  principle  that  punishment  may 
.  .  .  without  reformatory  influences  be  a 
means  of  moral  amendment  finds  expression 
in  many  judicial  utterances.  It  is  obviously 
a  well-meant,  but  mistaken  attempt  to  bring 
the  sanctions  of  the  moral  law  and  of  the 
ecclesiastical  dispensation  to  the  aid  of  the 
criminal  law.  .  .  .  This  imputes  to  the 
law  a  sanctity  which  the  criminal  would  be 
the  last  to  concede  to  it ;  and  so  quite  apart 
from  the  vile  and  degrading  conditions  under 
which  this  work  of  grace  was  to  be  effected, 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  we  find  no 
traces  of  its  efficacy.  .  .  . 

"  The  principle  of  the  reformation  of  crimi- 


170          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

nals  during  imprisonment  .  .  .  does  not 
assume  that  all  criminals  are  capable  of  ref 
ormation,  or  even  of  improvement,  nor  that 
those  who  are  can  all  be  brought  up  to  the 
level  of  good  citizenship.  It  does  assume, 
however,  that  most  men  and  women,  and  all 
children,  will  respond  to  the  steady  pressure  of 
a  wholesome,  uplifting  environment  .  .  . 
and  it  has  already  proven  its  faith  by  its 
works.  ...  It  must  have  cognizance  of 
the  life  history  of  every  individual  committed 
to  prison,  with  his  heredity  and  environment. 
It  studies  him  in  prison — his  needs,  his  ca 
pacities,  his  aspirations,  his  mental  and  moral 
equipment,  his  health,  his  reaction  to  ... 
prison  life.  It  follows  him  after  his  discharge. 
.  .  .  It  levies  on  all  the  sciences  that  deal 
with  man — law,  medicine,  criminology,  soci 
ology.  .  .  . 

"  The  next  few  years  will  give  us  new  data 
of  great  importance.  .  .  .  But  there  will 
be  no  facts  for  him  who  regards  the  criminal 
law  as  an  instrument  for  venting  wrath  and 
hate  on  a  fallen — and  convicted — brother  ; 
none  for  him  who  would  keep  his  fellow  man 
in  subjection  to  his  iron  law  by  terror ;  none 
for  him  who  would  work  redemption  through 
another's  suffering.  .  .  .  The  new  moral 
atmosphere  which  has  made  every  man  his 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  171 

brother's  keeper  will  be  felt  in  the  law  courts 
as  well  as  in  the  home  and  street.  The  new 
attitude  of  the  state  towards  children  of  tender 
years  will  soon  mark  her  attitude  towards  her 
erring  children  of  a  larger  growth." 

Those  of  us  who  can  find  comfort  in  a  fact 
so  painful  may  be  assured  that  we  of  the 
South  are  not  alone  in  the  possession  of  a 
prison  system  outworn  and  barbarous.  Noth 
ing  in  our  awful  camps  could  be  worse  than 
what  has  been  found,  in  most  recent  years,  in 
the  state  prisons  of  several  of  the  richest  and 
most  enlightened  states  of  the  North  and 
West ;  and  if  they  were  all  investigated  the 
present  black  list  would  doubtless  be  longer 
than  it  is.  But  this  fact  concerns  us  only  as 
it  shows  that  our  own  conditions  are  part  of 
a  world- wide  horror,  which  the  best  thought 
of  the  world  has  set  itself  to  destroy.  The 
reformation  of  our  whole  prison  system  is  our 
part  of  a  world-task. 

We  need  a  Southern  Prison  Commission, 
appointed  by  the  governors  of  the  states,  not 
to  revise  our  prison  system,  but  to  study  con 
ditions,  here  and  elsewhere,  and  to  formulate 
a  new  system  abreast  of  modern  experience, 
and  founded  on  bed-rock  truth  and  justice, 
instead  of  on  the  philosophy  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  members  of  the  Commission 


1Y2          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

should  be  men  of  broad  humanity  and  of 
strong  common  sense.  Such  men  could,  by 
the  authority  of  their  respective  governors, 
make  individual  and  unannounced  visits,  each 
to  a  number  of  prisons  in  his  own  state.  Then 
they  could  examine  the  best  the  world  can 
show  them ;  the  Denver  juvenile  court ;  the 
Colorado  state  farm,  where  "  hardened " 
criminals  are  turned  into  men,  without  stripes, 
threats,  chains  or  armed  guards ;  the  District 
of  Columbia  prison  farm  ;  the  wonderful  work 
for  women  at  Bedford,  N.  Y.,  for  men  at 
Great  Meadow,  and  for  children  at  Industry, 
in  the  same  state  ;  the  Kansas  City  municipal 
farm,  a  new  idea  in  local  government ;  the 
Massachusetts  farms  for  vagrants  and  in 
ebriates,  and  many  more. 

This  Commission  would  find  at  least  three 
points  in  the  South  where  Negro  lawbreak 
ers  are  being  successfully  trained  towards 
good  citizenship.  In  Virginia  it  is  being 
done  at  the  suggestion,  and  under  the  super 
vision,  of  a  state  officer,  and  with  the  back 
ing  of  the  legislature.  In  Georgia  and  Ala 
bama  it  is  being  done  by  unknown  and  un 
lettered  Negroes,  whose  loving  hearts  have 
led  them  into  a  wisdom  not  to  be  attained  by 
any  amount  of  unloving  knowledge. 

The  State  Superintendent  of  Charities  and 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  173 

Correction  in  Virginia,  a  large-hearted,  broad- 
minded  man,  fully  abreast  of  the  develop 
ments  of  modern  penology,  has,  in  the  last 
three  years,  taken  from  the  Richmond  peni 
tentiary  one  hundred  and  fifty  convicted  Ne 
gro  "criminals,"  all  under  fifteen  years  of 
age,  and  has  placed  them,  under  proper 
supervision,  in  good  Negro  homes,  as  mem 
bers  of  the  respective  families.  He  tells  me 
one  hundred  and  forty-three  of  these  boys 
are  "  making  good."  They  are  growing  up 
into  self-respecting  and  wealth-producing 
citizens,  instead  of  becoming  a  recurring 
charge  upon  the  state,  which  is  the  usual  re 
sult  of  our  ordinary  methods  of  dealing  with 
Negro  first  offenders. 

At  Ralph,  Ala.,  is  the  Sam  Daily  reforma 
tory,  still  called  by  his  name,  though  Sam 
Daily  himself  has  made  his  humble  exit  from 
life  with  no  trumpets  to  proclaim  him  a  hero, 
unless  the  angels  sounded  them  on  the  other 
side.  He  was  a  full-blooded  Negro,  with  no 
touch  of  efficiency  as  the  gift  of  another  race. 

A  white  Alabamian,  a  city  judge,  moved 
with  compassion  for  the  young  Negro  delin 
quents  brought  before  him,  called  for  some 
good  Negro  of  like  compassion  to  give  the 
boys  a  chance.  Sam  Daily  responded,  do 
nating  himself,  his  family,  and  one  hundred 


174          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

and  twenty-five  acres  of  land  to  their  use. 
First  and  last  he  took  about  three  hundred 
boys  from  the  Birmingham  juvenile  court, 
paid  their  way  to  the  railroad  station  nearest 
his  farm,  fed  them,  clothed  them,  taught 
them  industry,  cleanliness  and  honour.  I  am 
told  that  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  his  boys 
"  make  good." 

The  most  curious  thing  about  this  enter 
prise  is  the  fact  that  this  poor  Negro,  who 
was  never  able  to  finish  paying  for  his  own 
farm,  spent  years  of  his  life  converting  law 
breakers  from  a  public  liability  to  a  public 
asset  without  receiving  any  public  money  to 
help  bear  the  expenses  of  the  process.  Indi 
vidual  white  men  have  helped  him,  and  now 
help  his  widow,  by  making  up  deficits  when 
they  occur  ;  but  there  is  no  regular  public  ap 
propriation  for  this  great  and  public  service. 
The  Southern  Presbyterian  Church,  however, 
now  pays  regularly  the  salary  of  a  trained 
Negro  assistant  at  the  reformatory.  A 
white  man,  formerly  a  large  slave-owner, 
who  knows  the  reformatory  well,  writes  me, 
in  regard  to  its  success  with  the  boys,  "  I 
should  call  this  forlorn  effort  to  help  the 
helpless  a  modern  miracle."  Only  it  isn't  a 
miracle :  it  is  natural  law  given  a  chance  to 
work. 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  175 

The  third  of  these  demonstrations  of  the 
response  of  Negro  delinquents  to  good  influ 
ences  is  made  at  the  Paul  Moss  Orphanage 
at  Augusta,  Ga.  Paul  Moss  is  a  Negro  of 
rather  limited  education  who  gave  up  an  ex 
cellent  income  as  a  skilled  mechanic  to  de 
vote  his  life  to  aiding  Negro  waifs  and  juve 
nile  delinquents.  He  put  all  his  savings  into 
a  small  farm,  where  he  has  supported  his 
charges  with  a  little  help  from  a  few  whites 
of  the  city  and  one  or  two  Northern  visitors. 
He  is  able  to  give  the  boys  not  much  book 
education,  but  teaches  them  practical  religion 
and  a  few  trades.  In  the  last  six  years  he 
has  sent  out  one  hundred  and  sixty  boys, 
half  of  whom  were  from  the  city  juvenile 
court,  the  others  being  orphans  and  waifs  in 
process  of  becoming  delinquents.  One  hun 
dred  and  fifty  of  these  boys  are  "  making 
good." 

Each  of  these  separate  experiments  shows 
that  the  response  made  by  Negro  delinquents 
to  a  helpful  and  sympathetic  environment 
equals  that  made  by  the  same  class  of  other 
races — about  ninety-five  per  cent.  Would 
not  our  Southern  Prison  Commission  consider 
this  method  of  dealing  with  lawbreakers 
economically  superior  to  the  one  now  in  gen 
eral  use?  Even  where  we  have  reforma- 


176          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

tories  for  young  Negroes  under  state  or 
county  supervision  the  inmates  are  treated  as 
prisoners,  dressed  in  some  kind  of  distinctive, 
branding  uniform,  kept  under  lock  and  key 
— and  eventually  landed,  very  many  of  them, 
in  our  prisons  and  convict  camps.  And  we 
think  that  fact  is  explained  by  the  Negro's 
criminal  tendencies.  The  Commission,  with 
all  the  evidence  before  it,  might  decide  differ 
ently. 

The  Commission  would  look  into  the  evils 
of  convict  labour  as  employed  in  many 
"model"  prisons,  so  called,  where  men  are 
driven  beyond  the  limit  of  health  under  a  con- 
tra'ct  system  as  vicious  as  our  own,  and  turned 
out  after  years  of  alleged  industrial  training 
skilled  only  in  some  occupation  employment 
in  which  is  impossible  outside  of  prison  walls. 
They  would  go  thoroughly  into  the  question 
of  the  state's  right,  while  attempting  to  re 
store  a  man  to  normal  citizenship,  to  forbid 
his  performance  of  the  primal  human  duty  to 
contribute  to  the  support  of  his  own  family  ; 
and  would  examine  the  methods  by  which 
innocent  women  and  children  are  beginning 
to  be  saved  from  this  usual  and  unjust  pun 
ishment. 

They  would  learn  what  public  services 
prisoners  perform  elsewhere,  while  being  at 


HUMAN  WKECKAGE  177 

the  same  time  restored  to  manhood.  We  are 
too  much  in  the  habit  of  looking  at  the  thing 
done,  and  ignoring  the  man  who  does  it. 
Many  of  us  feel,  for  instance,  that  in  setting 
her  convicts  to  work  on  the  public  roads — a 
most  beneficent  public  service — one  of  our 
states  has  taken  front  rank  in  the  treatment 
of  her  criminals.  Yet  that  state  clothes  those 
men  in  stripes,  as  we  all  do,  and  works  them 
in  chains,  on  the  public  roads,  under  armed 
guards  destitute  of  knowledge  or  fitness  in 
the  fine  art  of  saving  human  wreckage. 

In  New  Zealand  in  the  last  decade  the  con 
victs  have  planted  20,000,000  trees  for  the 
state,  timbering  waste  lands,  and  reclaiming 
the  men.  But  they  do  not  wear  stripes  in 
New  Zealand.  The  idea  there  is  to  deliver 
them  from  past  degradation,  not  to  sear  it  in 
for  present  and  future  injury.  Denmark  re 
forests  her  waste  lands  with  men  who,  like 
the  land,  are  in  process  of  restoration. 
Prussia  and  Switzerland  employ  them  to  care 
for  the  great  state  forests :  and  they  are 
employed  in  a  number  of  our  own  Western 
states  in  various  works  of  reclamation,  though 
too  often,  with  us,  the  uppermost  idea  is  the 
reclamation,  not  of  men,  but  of  property. 

All  these  things  our  Southern  Prison  Com 
mission  would  consider  ;  and  far  above  the 


178          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

great  and  profitable  work  of  reclaiming  and 
enriching  the  wide  waste  lands  of  the  South 
by  prison  labour,  they  would  set  that  greater 
and  more  profitable  work  of  preventing  the 
wide  waste  of  human  life,  and  reclaiming 
that  already  in  process  of  ruin. 

A  prison  system  suited  to  human  needs — 
the  needs  of  prisoners,  of  their  families,  of  the 
community  at  large — could  be  formulated, 
and  presented  to  all  our  states,  together  with 
the  information  necessary,  and  with  the  weight 
of  this  South-wide  Commission  behind  it.  In 
principle,  if  not  in  all  its  details,  it  would  be 
adopted  in  some  states  ;  and  ultimately  in  all, 
as  the  experience  of  the  foremost  illuminated 
the  wisdom  of  its  provisions. 

We  need  no  revision  of  what  we  now  have : 
we  need  a  new  penology,  based  on  a  con 
ception  of  human  life  radically  opposed  to 
most  that  underlies  our  theory  of  punishment 
to-day. 

We  need  to  take  up  the  call  already  being 
heard  throughout  the  civilized  world — a  call 
for  trained  men  and  women  to  create  the  new 
profession  of  Healers-of-men-in-prison.  We 
would  not,  even  in  our  politics-fuddled  cities 
put  fifteenth  century  "  leeches  "  (if  we  could 
get  them)  in  charge  of  our  public  hospitals. 
Yet  we  count  any  ignorance  competent  to 


HUMAN  WRECKAGE  179 

take  unlimited  control  of  sick  souls  and 
abnormal  minds.  In  the  recent  Prison  Con 
gress  America  and  Hungary  joined  hands  to 
express  the  conviction  of  the  penologists  of 
the  world  that  this  professional  training  of 
prison  officers — men  already  fitted  by  nature 
for  such  difficult  and  important  work — was 
a  vital  need  in  the  progress  of  humanity 
towards  a  sane  and  successful  treatment  of 
the  world-problem  of  human  wreckage. 


VI 

SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION 

IF  I  were  asked  what  the  mass  of  the 
Negroes  most  need  that  we  should  give 
them,  I  think  only  one  answer  could  be 
given  which  would  go  to  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter.  And  that  deepest  need  is  not  at  all 
a  Negro  need,  but  a  human  one  :  we  ourselves, 
as  a  people,  share  it  profoundly. 

They  need  ideals.  The  lives  of  so  many 
of  them  seem  just  a  chaos  of  wants,  so  that 
one  stands  at  first  dumb  with  bewilderment : 
so  many  fundamental  needs,  so  much  empti 
ness  where  there  must  be  solid  foundations  if 
anything  worth  while  is  built  up  !  But  that 
which  will  open  a  way  to  fill  all  these  empty 
spaces  is  a  vision  of  something  higher  in 
their  own  souls ;  something  higher,  yet  not 
too  far  or  cold  to  kindle  a  spark  of  desire  in 
their  hearts,  to  quicken  them,  by  vision  and 
aspiration. 

If  we  will  look  back  over  the  last  fifty  years 
we  will  see,  perhaps,  how  little  of  this  fore 
most  essential  of  human  advance  we  have 
furnished  for  them.  Some  things  we  have 
180 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    181 

done,  I  know.  We  have  paid  millions  for 
their  education  in  the  public  schools:  but 
have  we  cared  how  it  was  spent  ?  The  su 
perintendent  of  education  in  one  of  our 
states,  in  a  recent  report,  pronounces  the  Ne 
gro  public  schools  of  that  commonwealth  ut 
terly  inefficient. 

He  charges  their  wretched  failure  on  the 
white  county  superintendents,  many  of  whom, 
he  says,  never  go  near  the  Negro  schools 
under  them,  nor  concern  themselves  with  the 
selection  of  fit  teachers,  nor  with  their  im 
provement  after  they  are  selected.  This 
story  would  fit  more  states  than  one.  We 
could  squander  ten  times  the  millions  already 
spent  in  education  like  that  without  creating 
a  single  impulse  towards  better  things  :  there 
is  never  any  vivifying  power  in  indifference. 

Yet  our  public  schools  for  Negroes  have 
done  good — a  world  of  it.  Some  of  this 
must  be  credited  to  those  among  us  who 
have  honestly  sought  the  Negro's  good. 
The  rest,  I  think,  is  due  to  the  Negroes  them 
selves,  and  to  those  once-so-hated  "  Yan 
kees"  who  first  made  possible  to  Negro  teach 
ers  a  suitable  preparation  for  their  work. 

Love  is  the  world's  lifting-force.  It  is  like 
the  light,  which  yearly  lifts  untold  tons  of 
cold,  dead  matter  to  the  tree-tops  in  the 


182          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

beauty  of  green  leaves.  When  we  see  leaves 
we  know  light  has  been  at  work :  nothing 
else  could  lift  matter  up  there  so  that  leaves 
could  be.  And  wherever  we  find  a  trace  of 
spiritual  quickening,  a  budding  of  dormant 
life,  however  scant,  we  know  by  the  same 
token  that  Love  has  been  at  work  :  there  is 
no  other  force  which  produces  that  effect. 
The  uplift  of  the  Negroes  through  the  public 
schools,  small  as  it  is  compared  with  what  it 
might  have  been  with  the  same  expenditure 
of  money,  has  chiefly  come,  not  from  our 
sometimes  grudging  provision,  but  from 
ideals  kindled  in  some  Negroes'  souls  by 
love  and  sacrifice  other  than  our  own. 

The  Northerners  who  came  down  here  to 
teach  the  Negroes  were  ignorant  of  our  past, 
of  our  conditions,  of  the  underlying  causes 
of  our  new  antagonism  to  the  Negroes — of 
all  the  circle  of  white  life  which  looked  to 
them  so  inexplicably  cruel  and  wrong.  They 
were  only  less  ignorant  about  the  Negroes, 
their  traditions,  their  stage  of  race-growth, 
their  true  relation  to  Southern  life.  Few 
people  had  learned  to  be  world-dwellers  then  ; 
and  these  eager  Northern  folk,  who  saw  a 
need  and  longed  to  meet  it,  translated  neither 
white  life  nor  black  into  world-terms.  They 
made  blunders,  of  course  ;  and  a  good  many 


A    RESPECTED    NEGRO   DOCTOR. 


PAINE   COLLEGE,   AUGUSTA,   GA. 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    183 

Negroes  acquired  some  knowledge  at  the  ex 
pense  of  more  wisdom.  We  have  all  seen 
white  people  do  the  same  thing.  And  cer 
tainly  the  South  never  tried  to  help  the  situa 
tion.  So  far  as  explanation  or  assistance 
went  we  maintained  a  silence  which  was  more 
than  felt,  while  these  from  another  world 
came  and  wrestled  with  our  problems  in  all 
good  faith,  and  according  to  their  darkness 
and  their  light. 

But  with  all  the  mistakes  and  friction,  the 
energy  wasted  or  turned  to  loss,  these  people 
brought  one  thing  with  them  which  is  never 
wholly  lost.  It  may  be  hindered,  partly  neg 
atived,  robbed  of  its  full  fruition  by  many 
things:  but  always  love  bears  fruit.  They 
brought  with  them  that  principle  of  life. 
They  kindled  a  light  in  darkened  hearts  ; 
they  sent  out  thousands  of  Negroes  fired 
with  ideals  of  service  to  their  race.  And  they 
have  saved  the  situation,  so  far  as  it  has  been 
saved,  for  our  Negro  public  schools. 

We  gave  the  Negroes  ideals  once.  The 
North  is  dull  of  understanding  at  this  point, 
as  we  are  dull  at  others.  It  cannot  take  in 
the  fact  that  slavery  and  ideals  could  exist 
contemporaneously.  Yet  once  the  North  it 
self,  and  in  the  most  strenuous  days  of  its 
New  England  conscience,  was  unaware  of 


184          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

any  incompatibility  between  the  two.  It  is 
the  big  brother  again,  forgetting  his  own  so- 
recent  ignorance,  and  ready  with  paste-pot 
and  label  for  the  younger  child. 

The  existence  of  slavery  we  long  accepted 
much  as  we  did  the  weather — as  a  dispensa 
tion  of  providence  which  it  were  idle  to  in 
quire  into.  But  we  had  a  genuine  affection 
for  the  Negroes,  and  out  of  it  we  met  this 
need  for  ideals — an  even  deeper  need  than 
emancipation  from  physical  slavery.  Every 
Protestant  denomination  in  the  South  had  its 
white  missionaries  among  the  slaves,  and  all 
together  they  had  nearly  half  a  million  slave 
members  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  One 
church  alone,  the  Southern  Methodist,  spent 
nearly  two  million  dollars  in  missions  to  the 
Negroes  prior  to  1861,  and  had  over  three 
hundred  white  missionaries  at  work  among 
them  when  the  war  broke  out.  The  individ 
ual  slave-owners,  the  very  great  majority  of 
whom  were  Christian  people,  did  even  more. 
Men  and  women,  they  taught  their  slaves  the 
Bible — not,  as  has  been  ignorantly  sug 
gested,  to  enforce  the  duties  of  meekness 
and  obedience,  but  because  the  love  of  God 
in  their  own  hearts  necessitated  their  impart 
ing  it  to  those  around  them.  My  own 
mother  was  typical  of  her  class,  and  no  one 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    185 

vho  came  in  contact  with  her  could  have  im 
agined  that  her  service  to  the  Negroes  was 
caused  by  anything  but  the  spirit  which  trans 
figured  her  whole  life  from  day  to  day.  Such 
women  held  regular  Sunday-schools  for  their 
slaves,  and  often  the  white  children  of  the 
household  sat  with  the  black  ones  to  learn 
the  Law  which  was  over  both  of  them  alike. 
In  times  oi  rejoicing  or  of  trouble  the  white 
people  went  to  the  Negro  homes  as  friends  ; 
and  in  sickness  they  cared  for  them  person 
ally,  often  with  their  own  hands. 

Those  among  us  who  deny  the  Negro's 
capacity  to  respond  to  ideals  should  remem 
ber  his  faithfulness  in  time  of  war  and  temp 
tation,  and  the  beauty  of  character  which  even 
the  most  prejudiced  of  us  admit  belonged  to 
"  the  old-time  Negro."  The  admission, 
coupled,  as  it  usually  is,  with  sweeping 
charges  against  the  character  of  the  Negro  of 
to-day,  is  the  severest  arraignment  of  South 
ern  Christianity  which  can  be  brought  against 
it.  And  we  bring  it  ourselves,  unseeing. 

But  the  truth  has  had  its  witnesses,  all 
along.  There  were  women  all  over  the 
South  who,  like  my  mother,  went  serenely  on 
in  the  path  of  love,  even  during  reconstruc 
tion  days,  ministering  to  the  sick  and  the 
poor  about  them,  regardless  of  the  colour  of 


186          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

their  skins,  and  seeing  only  needs  which  love 
must  meet.  There  were,  in  every  state,  men 
like  Governor  Colquitt,  of  Georgia,  who  as 
slave-owner,  impoverished  Confederate,  and 
governor  of  his  state,  would  tuck  his  Bible 
under  his  arm  any  afternoon  in  the  week, 
and  go  to  some  Negro  cabin,  where  he  would 
read  and  teach  and  pray,  talking  with  the 
family  as  friend  with  friends,  advising,  com 
forting  and  inspiring  them. 

Nor  did  the  next  generation  utterly  fail. 
Through  all  the  turmoil  of  reconstruction 
some  passed  the  spirit  of  service  to  their  chil 
dren.  An  Alabama  woman,  for  instance,  who 
was  widowed  by  the  war,  remained  on  her 
remote  plantation,  where  she  spent  her  life 
teaching  the  Negroes  of  the  neighbourhood 
free  of  charge.  Her  daughters  took  up  her 
work,  and  carry  it  on  to  this  day.  I  know  a 
brilliant  Kentucky  woman,  daughter  of  a 
great  slave-owner  of  that  state  who  was  at 
one  time  its  governor,  who  has  been  a  helper 
to  Negro  church  workers,  and  to  any  Negro 
in  need,  her  whole  long,  beautiful  life.  An 
other  friend,  a  woman  of  wealth  and  influence, 
a  leader  among  the  women  of  the  South  to 
day,  taught  a  Bible  class  of  Negroes  for  six 
teen  years,  until  her  strength  failed  under  her 
accumulating  work  for  the  unprivileged. 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    187 

Space  fails  for  the  instances  known  to  even 
one  person.     One  more  must  suffice. 

Just  after  the  war  a  South  Carolinian,  a 
graduate  of  Brown  University  and  a  devout 
Baptist,  went  to  a  Georgia  city  and  gathered 
about  him  a  little  knot  of  Negro  boys  who 
wanted  to  become  Baptist  preachers.  He 
taught  them  there  for  years,  spending  himself 
to  give  ideals  to  the  ignorant  and  the  poor, 
cut  off  from  all  other  association.  For  the 
white  people  were  bitter  in  those  days,  and 
despised  him  where  they  did  not  hate.  It 
was  one  man's  vision  against  a  city's  blind 
ness — that  world-old  story  of  ignorance,  and 
of  light  no  darkness  can  quench.  He  is  for 
gotten  to-day  by  all  but  a  few  Negroes,  one 
of  whom,  a  fine,  strong  man  who  had  felt  his 
touch,  told  me  his  story.  But  the  black  boys 
to  whom  he  gave  ideals  have  gone  out  to 
give  their  people  light.  Their  church  is 
strong  in  Georgia,  and  these  men  lead  it. 
One  of  them  is  its  chief  pastor  in  my  own 
city ;  and  so  well  has  he  responded  to  his 
teacher's  efforts  that  the  white  people  of  the 
town  are  all  his  friends.  When  he  was  ill 
not  long  ago  the  daily  paper  reported  his 
condition,  and  gave  the  names  of  several  of 
the  leading  business  men  who  went  to  his 
home  to  inquire  how  he  did. 


188          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Yet  few  of  the  whites  who  speak  of  this 
Negro  and  of  the  others  who  were  taught 
with  him,  as  "  the  kind  all  Negroes  ought  to 
be  "  have  any  idea  where  the  real  springs  of 
their  lives  were  found.  Some  of  us,  turning 
away  from  the  South's  long  tradition  of  serv 
ice  to  the  Negro  race,  knowing  only  the  dis 
jointed  years  of  bitterness,  feel  only  contempt, 
or  at  best  a  puzzled  surprise,  that  any  white 
Southerner  should  lower  himself  by  stooping 
to  help  a  Negro,  or  should  persuade  himself 
that  they  are  worth  the  effort. 

Yet  we  have  never  offered  them  ideals  out 
of  a  living  sympathy  that  they  have  not  re 
sponded,  for  themselves  and  for  their  race. 
No  one  who  knows  the  better  class  of  Ne 
groes  can  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  spirit 
of  sacrifice  and  service  which  is  shared  by 
nearly  all  of  them.  They  follow  that  law  of 
human  life  under  which  any  race,  in  common 
stress  of  any  kind,  draws  closer  the  band 
of  brotherhood,  and  lives  for  the  common 
good. 

And  oh,  we  white  people  are  waking  up  ! 
The  thrill  of  the  North's  awaking,  long  ago 
begun,  and  not  yet  ended,  is  with  me  still ; 
but  these  are  my  very  own !  Some  of  us 
have  worked  and  waited  so  long.  There 
have  been  years  when  the  only  warrant  for 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    189 

hope  was  in  the  long  look  at  the  Race  of 
Man,  and  the  Love  which  leads  it  on.  But 
that  was  warrant  enough. — And  now  ?  Just 
a  few  of  the  signs— a  few. 

For  long  our  churches  have  set  a  standard 
for  us ;  and  even  though  they  themselves 
have  not  lived  up  to  it,  the  pegs  were  down, 
and  visible  to  the  careful  eye.  In  1876  the 
Southern  Presbyterians  opened  a  theolog 
ical  school  for  Negroes  at  Tuscaloosa,  Ala. 
For  nineteen  years  the  pastor  of  the  white 
Presbyterian  church  of  the  town  was  also  the 
head  of  this  school,  which  has  had  only  South 
ern  whites  as  teachers  from  the  beginning. 
The  yearly  income,  provided  by  the  denomi 
nation,  had  risen  from  four  hundred  dollars 
the  first  year  to  fifteen  thousand  twenty  years 
later.  The  theologues  pay  their  board  and 
tuition  by  working  on  the  school  farm  under 
expert  teaching.  They  go  out  to  preach  a 
gospel  of  love,  morality,  cleanliness,  hard 
work,  and  modern  methods  of  farming  ;  also 
of  friendliness  to  their  white  neighbours.  I  am 
told,  by  those  who  know  the  section  about 
Tallapoosa,  that  race  relations  there  are  not 
of  the  problem  kind.  There  has  been  re 
sponse  to  ideals  from  both  whites  and  blacks. 
The  present  head  of  the  school  is  the  son  of 
a  Mississippi  slave-owner. 


190          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

A  few  years  after  this  school  was  started 
the  Southern  Methodists  opened  an  institu 
tion  in  Augusta,  Ga.,  for  the  training  of 
Negro  preachers,  teachers,  and  other  lead 
ers  for  the  race.  Its  first  president  was  a 
former  slave-owner,  who  resigned  the  chair 
of  English  in  a  strong  college  to  take  the 
position  at  a  most  problematical  salary.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  school  lived  "  at  a 
poor  dying  rate  "  for  several  years  :  but  the 
denomination  was  officially  committed  to  it 
as  a  proper  work  for  white  Christians  to 
undertake  ;  Southern  white  college  men  and 
women  have  officered  it  from  the  first ;  and 
for  eighteen  years  the  church  Board  of  Edu 
cation  has  put  its  needs  before  the  people, 
and,  in  cooperation  with  its  president  and 
faculty,  has  gradually  won  for  it  a  better 
support. 

These  are,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  schools 
maintained  exclusively  by  Southern  whites  for 
Negroes ;  but  the  Episcopal  church  has  a 
number  of  schools  for  them  in  which  Southern 
as  well  as  Northern  whites  teach  ;  and  part 
of  their  support,  which  comes  from  their 
General  Mission  Board,  is  drawn  from  the 
Southern  dioceses.  The  Southern  Baptists, 
who  have  long  made  an  annual  appro 
priation  for  the  education  of  Negroes  at 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    191 

schools  of  other  churches,  are  now  preparing 
to  open  a  theological  seminary  for  them. 

The  first  Southern  settlement  for  Negroes 
is  conducted  by  the  son  of  an  Alabama  banker 
and  former  slaveholder.  It  is  in  Louisville, 
and  is  of  late  years  jointly  financed  by  the 
Northern  and  Southern  Presbyterians.  This 
settlement,  I  am  told,  is  largely  responsible  for 
Louisville's  Negro  playgrounds  and  proba 
tion  officers.  This  city  also  has  a  fine  public 
library  for  Negroes,1  with  a  Negro  librarian 
and  two  assistants,  all  under  the  white  libra 
rian  who  is  the  head  of  the  city  system. 
A  children's  room  is  well  patronized  ;  and 
branches  are  maintained  at  some  of  the  public 
schools.  In  a  private  letter  the  white  head  of 
the  system  declares  the  Negro  library  an 
untold  blessing  to  the  race.  The  use  of  a 
room  in  the  building  is  allowed,  free  of 
charge,  to  clubs  and  other  educational  and 
recreational  gatherings.  The  children,  he 
writes,  respond  readily  to  guidance,  and  are 
eager  for  good  books.  The  number  of  adult 
patrons  grows  steadily.  The  library,  which 
is  a  beautiful  building,  was  given  by  Mr. 
Carnegie,  and  cost  $25,000.00.  It  is  main 
tained  by  the  city  of  Louisville.  Libraries  for 

1  Since  this  was  written  a  second  branch  public  library  for 
Negroes  has  been  opened  in  Louisville. 


192          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Negroes  have  also  been  given  by  Mr.  Car 
negie  to  New  Orleans,  to  Nashville,  and  to 
Meridian,  Miss.,  the  city  authorities  guaran 
teeing  ample  support. 

I  can  learn  of  but  two  other  Negro  public 
libraries  in  the  South.  One,  at  Galveston,  is 
the  gift  of  a  citizen  of  that  place,  whose  will 
made  provision  for  a  library  for  each  race. 
The  librarian  said  that  the  children  were  be 
ing  helped  by  it  to  a  large  extent.  The  re 
sponse  among  adults  was  less  marked.  The 
other  public  library  for  Negroes  is  at  Jackson 
ville,  Fla.  ;  and  my  last  report  from  it,  some 
time  ago,  stated  that  it  was  not  as  efficient 
as  it  should  be,  because  only  a  room  in  a 
corner  of  the  building  for  whites  was  available, 
so  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  efforts  to 
extend  the  work ;  but  their  present  capacity 
was  taxed. 

Here  is  a  scarcely-touched  opportunity  to 
create  ideals  for  a  race.  These  Carnegie 
libraries  are  among  the  wisest  investments 
in  the  South.  But  some  of  us,  like  the  chil 
dren  in  the  market-place,  are  hard  to  please. 
If  the  Negroes  care  nothing  for  books  we 
say  they  are  stupid  and  vicious-minded : 
if  one  proposes  antidoting  this  dangerous 
condition  with  the  best  literature,  sympa 
thetically  applied,  we  cry  out  against  the 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    193 

Negro's  uppishness,  and  want  him  taught  to 
work. 

He  ought  to  be  taught  to  work,  no  doubt. 
The  great  majority  of  Negroes,  like  the 
majority  of  every  race,  must  always  work 
with  their  hands.  There  is  a  deal  more  of 
what  is  called  drudgery  to  be  done  in  the 
world  than  of  everything  else  put  together ; 
and  most  of  us  have  our  share  of  it  to  perform. 
But  no  one  to  whom  work  is  drudgery  has 
ever  been  rightly  taught  to  work.  I  believe 
this  lack  of  proper  training  is  at  the  bottom 
of  nine-tenths — or  maybe  eleven-tenths — of 
all  the  laziness  and  shiftlessness  of  the  poor 
which  does  not  come  from  sub-normal  phys 
ical  conditions.  Drudgery  is  not  work :  it  is 
a  mental  attitude  towards  work  which  comes 
from  ignorance  or  from  physical  weakness. 
The  narrower  the  round  of  a  man's  Lie,  or  a 
woman's,  the  more  they  need  outlook  and 
horizon.  The  world  over,  the  world's  poor 
have  been  set  to  do  the  hardest  work  in  a 
perfectly  detached,  unrelated  way,  without 
reasons,  without  background,  without  a  trace 
of  world-connections  ;  and  they  usually  find 
it  a  very  boring  job,  and  shirk  it  when  they 
can,  naturally. 

We  are  learning  rapidly  to  broaden  the 
white  worker's  horizon  through  the  industrial 


194          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

training  given  in  our  public  and  normal 
schools,  and  in  our  agricultural  colleges ; 
and  in  some  of  our  cities  part  of  this  training 
is  given  to  Negroes,  some  of  it  of  a  high 
order.  In  Richmond  County,  Georgia,  this 
industrial  work  has  been  extended  by  the 
county  itself,  with  no  outside  aid,  to  the 
Negro  country  schools.  We  have  there  a 
superintendent  who  looks  closely  after  the 
schools  of  both  races  ;  and  the  county  super 
intendent  of  industrial  training  gives  as 
efficient  oversight  and  help  to  the  Negro 
schools,  city  and  country,  as  to  the  white.  I 
speak  of  this  county  because,  living  in  it,  I 
happen  to  know  about  it.  That  many  others 
do  as  well  I  do  not  doubt. 

But  the  great  impulse  towards  rational 
training,  towards  an  education  which  really 
educates,  in  the  Negro  country  schools  has 
come  from  the  Jeanes  Fund,  given  by  a 
Northern  woman,  and  administered  by  a 
Southern  man,  the  grandson  of  a  great  slave 
holder,  a  scholar  and  educator  of  distinc 
tion.  I  know  of  no  other  one  force  in 
Negro  life  more  beneficent  than  this.  It  is 
demonstrating  in  every  one  of  our  states  the 
kind  of  work  needed  in  their  rural  schools, 
and  its  quickening  influence  grows  with  the 
years.  Virginia,  first  of  all  the  South,  ap- 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    195 

pointed  a  superintendent  of  Negro  rural 
public  schools,  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  College 
graduate  and  a  man  for  the  South  to  be 
proud  of.  Kentucky,  Georgia,  North  Caro 
lina  and  Alabama  have  followed  the  example ; 
and  the  other  states  are  bound  to  do  likewise 
or  to  see  themselves  out-distanced  in  the 
production  of  wealth  in  the  not-far-distant 
future.  For  it  is  human  nature  to  love  work 
when  ideals  are  put  into  it,  when  it  has  a 
background  and  a  horizon. 

The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  doing,  through  Southern 
secretaries,  a  work  which  can  hardly  be 
estimated.  Six  thousand  students  have  been 
enrolled  in  Y.  M.  C.  A.  study  classes  in 
Southern  colleges  to  study  the  Negro  and 
the  white  man's  duty  to  him.  Already 
various  forms  of  settlement  and  Sunday- 
school  work  have  grown  out  of  this  study. 
In  fifteen  years  these  young  men  will  be  the 
leaders  of  the  South  ;  and  even  now  the 
attitude  of  our  colleges  and  universities, 
faculties  and  students,  is  an  appreciable 
factor  in  the  changing  public  sentiment. 

The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  also  a  large  coloured 
organization.  Forty-one  associations  with 
over  sixty  thousand  members  are  enrolled. 
Here  again  is  a  great  opportunity  to  help 
create  ideals  for  a  race.  In  our  cities  there  is 


196          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

no  better  way  to  fight  intemperance  and 
many  other  forms  of  vice  among  the  Negroes, 
than  to  provide  them  with  a  good  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
building,  and  to  help  them  get  it  fully  on  its 
feet. 

The  women  of  the  Southern  Methodist 
church  are  the  only  ones  in  the  South  as  yet 
carrying  on  organized  work  for  Negroes. 
For  over  twenty-five  years  they  have  been 
the  South's  women-pioneers  along  social 
service  lines,  first  to  whites  and  now  to 
blacks.  They  opened  the  first  settlement  in 
the  South,  employed  the  first  visiting  nurse, 
opened  the  first  free  clinic,  and  introduced  free 
kindergartens  and  industrial  training  at  many 
points  where  they  were  previously  unknown. 

Twelve  years  ago  they  built  two  industrial 
cottages  for  girls  at  the  church's  school  for 
Negroes  in  Augusta,  and  have  since  provided 
for  the  industrial  training  there,  besides  erect 
ing  recently  a  $25,000.00  dormitory.  This 
sum  was  raised  from  several  sources.  Half 
of  it  was  given  by  Southern  white  women, 
some  of  them  giving  as  much  as  a  thousand 
dollars  each ;  five  thousand  was  given  by  the 
General  Education  Board  ;  and  the  rest  was 
raised  by  a  Negro  man  from  the  white 
Southern  Methodist  conferences» 

In    addition    to    this,    these    women    will 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    197 

shortly  open  a  farm  school  for  Negro  boys  in 
Mississippi,  five  hundred  acres  of  land  having 
been  recently  given  them  by  a  Southern 
white  man  for  this  purpose. 

In  1911  they  appointed  an  Alabama  woman, 
a  college  graduate,  as  secretary  for  Negro 
work.  Her  headquarters  were  located  in 
Augusta,  where  she  has  opened  the  white 
South's  second  settlement  for  Negroes,  the 
one  in  Louisville  being  the  first. 

The  Augusta  vacation  playgrounds,  secured 
by  the  cooperation  of  people  of  both  races, 
are  an  outcome  of  this  work,  which,  inade 
quately  housed  and  provided  for  as  it  is,  is 
full  of  promise  and  interest.  The  children, 
nearly  all  from  the  poorest  class,  are  as  re 
sponsive  as — well,  as  children,  the  world 
around  :  their  development,  in  their  various 
clubs  and  classes,  is  as  striking  as  in  any 
children  of  like  class  anywhere.  The  kin- 
dergartner  is  a  coloured  woman,  a  graduate 
of  one  of  the  best  of  the  schools  established 
by  Northern  missionaries  after  the  war,  and  a 
power  for  good  among  her  people. 

But  however  institutions  may  be  built  up 
or  multiplied,  the  South-wide  need  is  a  South- 
wide  turning  of  the  hearts  of  the  strong  to 
help  the  weak  both  by  personal  service  and 
by  cooperation  with  capable  Negro  leaders. 


198          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

To  this  need  a  number  of  Southern  agencies 
at  last  begin  to  address  themselves. 

The  will  of  the  late  Miss  Caroline  Phelps 
Stokes,  a  well-known  Northern  philanthropist, 
provided  for  the  endowment  of  fellowships  in 
the  state  universities  of  Virginia  and  Georgia 
"  to  enable  Southern  youth  of  broad  sym 
pathies  to  make  a  scientific  study  of  the 
Negro,  and  of  his  adjustment  to  American 
civilization."  These  fellowships  were  ac 
cepted  in  the  spirit  of  their  founder,  and  in 
the  belief  that  "  any  national  program  look 
ing  to  the  adjustment  of  relations  must  be 
based  on  a  far  wider  knowledge  of  actual 
conditions  than  we  now  have."  The  uni 
versity  of  Georgia  has  just  published  the  re 
sults  of  the  investigations  made  by  its  first 
Fellow  under  this  foundation.  He  is  the  son 
of  a  member  of  the  university  faculty,  and 
has  spent  a  year  in  a  close  and  sympathetic 
study  of  the  Negroes  of  Athens,  the  uni 
versity  town,  and  of  their  relations  with  the 
whites.  His  report  makes  clear  the  com 
munity  menace  of  conditions  allowed  in  the 
Negro  quarters,  and  calls  for  the  cooperation 
of  the  educated  whites  in  upbuilding  the 
homes,  churches  and  schools  of  the  Negroes. 
Reports  like  these,  coming  from  a  great  and 
beloved  university,  are  sure  to  leaven  the 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    199 

thought  of  an  entire  state.  Miss  Stokes' s 
gift,  like  that  of  Miss  Jeanes,  proves  the 
wisdom  of  Northern  philanthropists  who 
choose  Southerners  in  sympathy  with  Negro 
betterment  to  administer  their  gifts.  Such 
gifts,  so  given,  draw  together  the  North  and 
the  South,  as  well  as  the  two  races  in  the 
South. 

At  the  recent  annual  meeting  of  the 
Women's  Missionary  Council  of  the  South 
ern  Methodist  Church  the  committee  on 
Social  Service  brought  in  the  following  re 
port,  which  was  unanimously  adopted  : 

"  It  shall  be  a  duty  of  the  Department  of 
Social  Service  to  promote  the  study  of  con 
ditions  and  needs  among  the  Negroes,  lo 
cally,  throughout  the  South  ;  also  to  arouse 
the  women  of  our  auxiliaries  to  a  sense  of 
their  personal  duty  as  Christian  Southerners 
to  meet  the  needs  and  ameliorate  the  con 
ditions  of  those  of  this  backward  race  who 
are  in  our  midst  by  personal  service  and 
sympathy.  We  recommend  the  giving  of 
this  sympathy  and  service  in  any  or  all  of  the 
following  ways : 

"(i)  By  learning  the  needs  of  Negro  Sun 
day-schools,  teaching  their  Bible  classes, 
training  their  teachers  in  modern  Sunday- 
school  methods,  helping  to  grade  their  schools, 


200          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

and  offering  such  other  assistance  as  may  be 
needed. 

"(2)  By  assisting  Negro  women  in  form 
ing  and  directing  missionary  societies  in 
their  churches,  giving  them  information  and 
other  help,  especially  in  regard  to  home  mis 
sion  work  among  the  poorer  classes  of  their 
own  race. 

"  (3)  By  looking  into  the  needs  of  Negro 
public  schools,  requiring  of  the  public  au 
thorities  that  their  premises  be  kept  sanitary, 
helping  to  secure  coloured  teachers  of  a 
high  grade,  and  favouring  the  introduction 
of  industrial  training. 

"(4)  By  looking  after  the  recreation,  or 
lack  of  it,  of  Negro  children  and  young  peo 
ple  ;  by  endeavouring  to  interest  the  Chris 
tian  women  of  all  denominations  in  secur 
ing  for  them  opportunities  for  clean  play  in 
playgrounds  supervised  by  good  Negro 
women  or  men ;  and  by  securing  coopera 
tion  with  Negro  Young  Men's  and  Young 
Women's  Associations  where  these  exist. 

"  (5)  By  securing  from  boards  of  educa 
tion  permission  to  use  Negro  schoolhouses 
as  community  centres,  organizing  and  assist 
ing  the  better  class  of  Negroes  in  each  com 
munity  to  take  charge  of  these  community 
centres  and  supervise  them  for  the  pleasure 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    201 

and  instruction  of  their  own  race.  By  inter 
esting  white  people  in  the  movement,  secur 
ing  white  physicians  and  others  to  talk  on 
personal  and  community  hygiene,  care  of 
children,  temperance,  and  other  matters. 

"  (6)  By  visiting  the  local  jails,  by  ascer 
taining  the  measure  of  justice  accorded  Ne 
groes  in  the  local  courts,  and  by  creating  a 
sentiment  for  justice  to  youthful  criminals 
whom  wise  treatment  may  reform. 

"  (7)  By  studying  Negro  housing  condi 
tions  and  their  bearing  on  sickness,  ineffi 
ciency,  and  crime  ;  by  bringing  these  condi 
tions  to  the  attention  of  the  public ;  by  in 
sisting  that  the  local  authorities  enforce  in 
the  Negro  district  the  sanitary  regulations  of 
the  community ;  by  securing  for  Negroes  a 
water  supply  sufficient  for  health  and  de 
cency  ;  by  helping  the  Negroes  of  the  better 
class  to  organize  among  their  people  civic 
clubs  where  the  young  may  be  trained  in 
community  cleanliness  and  righteousness. 

"  (8)  By  creating  in  the  local  white  com 
munity  higher  ideals  in  regard  to  the  rela 
tion  between  the  two  races  ;  by  standing  for 
full  and  equal  justice  in  all  departments  of 
life  ;  by  endeavouring  to  secure  for  the  back 
ward  race  not  only  the  full  measure  of  de 
velopment  of  which  they  are  capable,  but  the 


202          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

unmolested  possession  and  enjoyment  of  all 
legitimate  rewards  of  honest  work ;  by  stand 
ing,  in  short,  for  the  full  application  to  the 
Negroes  and  to  ourselves  of  the  Mosaic  law 
of  justice :  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself.' " 

There  are  four  thousand  auxiliaries  in  this 
organization ;  and  even  though  the  work  be 
taken  up  slowly,  it  will  spread.  The  authori 
ties  at  Paine  College  are  urging  upon  the 
church  the  establishment  of  a  training  school 
for  Negro  missionaries  and  social  workers 
who  may  be  employed  by  the  whites  as  well 
as  by  coloured  churches  in  all  these  forms  of 
cooperative  effort.  The  need  is  so  great  we 
can  but  trust  it  will  be  met. 

The  secretary  for  the  Home  Department 
of  the  General  Board  of  Missions  of  this 
church  is  working  along  similar  lines.  At 
his  instance  the  Alabama  conference  has 
appointed  a  committee  of  ministers,  laymen 
and  women,  to  look  into  the  condition  of 
the  Negroes  within  the  bounds  of  the  con 
ference  at  all  these  points.  A  consistent  plan 
of  conference-wide  help  and  cooperation  is 
expected  to  result ;  and  such  committees  will 
be  asked  for  in  the  other  conferences  until  all 
have  taken  the  matter  up. 

The  deepest  significance  of  all  these  move- 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    203 

ments  in  the  various  churches  lies  in  the  fact 
that  they  all  look  towards  cooperation  be 
tween  the  better  classes  of  both  races  for  the 
uplift  of  the  Negro  poor.  It  is  impossible  to 
serve  the  best  interests  of  either  race  without 
this  personal  communication  between  the 
two.  Where  we  have  had  a  disposition  to 
help  the  Negroes  the  attitude  of  the  whites, 
both  North  and  South,  has  been  too  often 
suggestive  of  that  of  the  rich  burgher  in  the 
play  of  Rip  Van  Winkle — "  Give  him  a 
cold  potato,  and  let  him  go."  We  have  but 
given  where  he  and  we  need  that  we  should 
share. 

There  are  notable  individual  exceptions, 
but  many  of  even  the  well-educated  Negroes 
are  yet  unequal  to  the  task  of  achieving  un 
aided  the  spiritual  emancipation  of  their  peo 
ple.  These  need  the  forming  and  inspiring 
touch  of  educated  whites. 

In  some  of  our  Northern  cities  more  or  less 
money  has  been  contributed  for  the  uplift  of  the 
local  Negro  population  through  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
work  or  otherwise  ;  but  often,  when  the  money 
is  given,  the  Negroes  are  left  quite  to  their 
own  devices  in  trying  to  serve  their  people  ; 
and  the  result  is  rarely  all  that  it  might  be 
under  a  system  of  sympathetic  cooperation 
between  both  races. 


204          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

A  Northern  Y.  M.  C.  A.  worker,  in  speak 
ing  of  this  fact  not  long  ago,  said  that  the 
Negroes  of  the  North  did  not  desire  coopera 
tion,  and  frequently  resented  it  when  offered. 

I  think  some  Negroes  in  the  South  feel  the 
same  way,  and  are  quick  to  repudiate  the 
suggestion  that  the  Negroes  are  not  entirely 
competent  to  take  full  charge  of  Negro  edu 
cation  and  Negro  uplift  in  general.  They 
want  white  people  to  furnish  the  money,  and 
leave  them  to  direct  the  work. 

That  some  Negroes  are  entirely  equal  to 
such  a  task  cannot  be  truthfully  denied.  The 
logical  deduction  from  this  fact  is  that  the 
race  has  capabilities  of  development  far  be 
yond  the  position  some  of  us  would  perma 
nently  assign  it.  But  it  is  idle  to  make  claims 
which  are  not  borne  out  by  facts.  The  finest 
and  strongest  Negroes,  I  believe  without  a 
single  exception,  have  come  to  their  high  de 
velopment  largely  through  contact  with 
broad-minded,  large-hearted  white  men  and 
women.  For  years  to  come  few  of  them  are 
destined  to  reach  that  plane  by  any  other 
process.  I  think  on  this  point  the  real  lead 
ers  in  the  South,  white  and  black,  are  agreed. 

There  should  be  some  white  teachers  in 
every  state  school  for  the  higher  education  of 
Negroes  ;  but  so  far  Alabama  is  the  only 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    205 

state  recognizing,  in  even  a  single  institution, 
this  statesmanlike  and  Christian  principle. 
In  Mississippi,  however,  whites  have  charge 
of  the  summer  school  for  Negro  teachers  ; 
and  in  my  home  county  of  Richmond,  in 
Georgia,  the  county  superintendent  super 
vises  in  person  the  yearly  institute  for  Negro 
teachers,  lecturing  before  them  from  time  to 
time.  This  is  probably  not  unusual. 

The  need  for  such  service  is  threefold.  As 
the  more  highly  developed  race  we  owe  this 
help  to  the  other  race  ;  and  unpaid  spiritual 
debts  issue,  sooner  or  later,  in  spiritual  bank 
ruptcy.  We  must  render  such  service  for  the 
sake  of  our  own  spiritual  integrity.  The 
Negroes  need  to  receive  all  we  can  give  them, 
that  their  own  power  to  give,  to  their  race 
and  to  the  nation,  may  be  enlarged.  And 
beyond  these  needs  is  the  fundamental  ne 
cessity  for  both  races  to  learn,  however  dis 
tinct  they  must  remain  racially,  to  work  to 
gether  in  mutual  respect,  cooperating  for  the 
good  of  their  common  country,  and  for  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

The  exceptional  Negro  should  be  given 
the  most  responsible  work  as  a  teacher  and 
leader  of  his  people  which  his  ability  de 
serves.  But  the  race  would  be  superhuman 
if  in  fifty  years  of  freedom  it  had  become 


206          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

capable  of  taking  its  future  entirely  into  its 
own  hands.  Some  Negroes  do  not  recognize 
this  fact,  and  are  quick  to  resent  white  assist 
ance  as  white  interference  ;  and  especially  to 
distrust  any  measure  or  method  which  em 
phasizes  the  need  for  discipline  of  mind  or 
spirit.  Surely  we  are  responsible  here.  Our 
long  indifference  weighs  heavily  against  us  ; 
and  our  assistance,  where  offered,  is  too  often 
tinctured — or  impregnated — with  condescen 
sion.  If  Christ  had  come  to  us  that  way  I 
think  we  would  be  savages  still.  However 
fine  it  may  look  on  the  outside,  there  is  no 
lifting  force  in  any  condescending  deed. 
When  we  set  about  our  task  in  that  entire 
simplicity  and  self-unconsciousness  which  are 
a  necessary  part  of  the  spirit  of  Christian 
service,  we  will  be  oftener  surprised  by  the 
depth  of  the  response  evoked  than  by  a  dis 
position  to  reject  our  help.  Money  alone, 
though  we  poured  it  into  institutions  for  the 
Negroes  like  water,  cannot  settle  our  debt. 
The  world  around,  the  debt  of  the  privileged 
involves  their  personality. 

One  of  the  straws  which  show  our  new 
consciousness  of  this  fact  blew  across  my 
path  not  long  ago  as  I  was  returning  from  a 
trip  to  the  North.  In  a  travellers'  chat  with 
another  passenger  the  subject  of  women's 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    207 

club-work  came  up ;  and  my  companion, 
knowing  nothing  of  my  own  interests,  told 
me  of  her  recent  experience  as  president  of 
the  federated  clubs  of  her  home  town,  a 
thriving  city  in  North  Carolina.  The  club 
women  had  decided  on  a  Clean-up  Day, 
when  it  occurred  to  her  that  in  order  to  make 
it  a  real  cleaning  day  the  city  should  be 
cleaned,  and  not  merely  that  fraction  of  it 
which  least  needed  cleansing.  So  she  pro 
posed  to  the  club-women  that  for  the  health 
of  their  own  households,  as  well  as  for  other 
obvious  reasons,  they  should  invite  the  lead 
ers  of  all  the  Negro  women's  societies  to  a 
conference,  get  them  interested  in  the  move 
ment,  and  have  a  Clean-up  Day  which  would 
leave  the  city  clean.  They  expected  perhaps 
a  dozen  Negro  women,  and  seventy  came. 
The  mayor  of  the  city  and  the  president  of 
the  Board  of  Health  addressed  the  gather 
ing,  and  then  the  women  talked,  white  and 
black. 

"And  you'd  have  been  as  astonished  as  we 
were  if  you'd  heard  those  Negroes/'  she 
declared.  "  Some  of  them  knew  as  much 
about  parliamentary  proceedings  as  we  did  ; 
and  they  were  so  sensible,  they  talked  so 
well,  they  were  so  glad  to  do  all  they  could ! 
— And  I  tell  you,"  she  added  with  a  little 


208          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

laugh,  "  when  it  came  to  cleaning  up,  we  had 
to  hustle  to  keep  up  with  them. — We  don't 
expect  much  sickness  in  town  this  summer  : 
the  place — the  whole  place — is  clean." 

And  Negroes  do  not  respond  to  ideals? 
Let  those  who  give  them  a  chance — a  grow 
ing  group  among  us — testify. 

This  North  Carolina  club  is  not  alone.  On 
the  Women's  Club  page  of  the  Atlanta  Con 
stitution  I  read  recently,  in  a  single  issue,  ac 
counts  of  three  Georgia  clubs  which  are  co 
operating  with  the  Negroes  of  their  respective 
cities  to  keep  their  towns  clean  and  health 
ful. 

The  annual  meetings  of  the  Virginia  State 
Board  of  Chanties  and  Correction  are  open 
to  both  races.  The  Negroes  report  there 
their  work  among  their  own  people  ;  and 
the  attitude  of  the  Board  is  one  of  solicitude 
and  helpfulness  towards  all  dependents  and 
delinquents  in  the  commonwealth,  rather 
than  towards  those  of  one  race. 

It  is  a  Virginia  town,  too,  which  is  demon 
strating  the  wisdom  of  another  form  of  co 
operation  ;  a  form  so  simple,  so  needed,  so 
obviously  Christian,  that  one  feels  it  should 
only  be  known  to  be  adopted.  I  learned  of 
it  from  a  chance  acquaintance  whose  relatives 
live  in  the  town.  The  Protestant  ministers  of 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    209 

the  town,  he  said,  both  white  and  black,  are 
members  of  the  Ministers'  Alliance.  They 
meet  once  a  month,  as  brothers  of  Him  who 
came  to  serve  all  races  and  all  classes  of 
men,  to  pra)  and  talk  and  plan  for  the  spiri 
tual  uplift  of  the  whole  community.  If  Christ 
came  again  in  the  flesh,  surely  nowhere  could 
He  feel  more  at  home  than  in  a  meeting- 
place  like  that. 

It  is  puzzling  that  the  local  churches,  of  all 
denominations,  all  over  the  South,  should 
fail  as  they  do  in  leadership  in  this  matter. 
Every  large  denomination  has  officially  gone 
on  record,  in  its  highest  legislative  body,  as 
recognizing  the  common  brotherhood  of  the 
races,  the  common  duty  of  the  strong  race  to 
serve  the  weak  one.  No  voice  has  been 
publicly  lifted,  in  any  denomination,  to  con 
trovert  this  doctrine.  White  ministers  have, 
undoubtedly,  the  kindliest  feelings  to  Negroes. 
None  of  them,  I  think,  would  hesitate  to  ac 
cept  gladly  any  invitation  to  speak  or  preach 
to  a  black  audience.  In  my  own  denomina 
tion,  when  one  speaks  to  a  conference  body 
of  ministers  about  our  duty  to  the  Negroes 
there  is,  of  recent  years,  a  deep,  and  often 
moving,  response ;  and  the  presiding  bishop 
never  fails  to  press  the  duty  home.  And  we 
are  not  double-faced,  nor  cowards.  But  I 


210          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

doubt  if,  in  any  state,  a  dozen  ministers 
could  be  found,  in  all  denominations  put 
together,  who  make  a  practice  of  preaching, 
even  once  in  two  or  three  years,  about  race 
relations,  or  our  duty  to  our  black  poor,  or 
the  connection  between  the  Negro  quarters 
of  our  cities  and  the  interests  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Yet  these  things  enter  into  the 
warp  and  woof  of  daily  life  in  the  South, 
and  help  or  hinder  the  growth  in  Christian 
character  of  every  member  of  every  church. 

It  is  true  the  leaders  of  the  South's  best 
thought  and  action  regarding  the  Negroes 
are  church-members,  grown  up  under  South 
ern  preachers ;  and  in  at  least  three  great 
denominations  the  head  of  the  work  for 
Negroes  is  a  minister,  officially  backed  by 
his  church.  Yet  the  pulpits  of  the  South 
rarely  speak  of  those  problems  which  press 
upon  us  all,  and  for  which  there  is  no  solu 
tion  outside  the  teachings  of  Christ.  In  this 
as  in  other  things,  the  country  over,  the 
churches  have  yielded  their  crown  of  leader 
ship  to  members  who  must  do  much  of  their 
work  along  lines  largely  ignored  by  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  ministry. 

Yet  there  are  exceptions,  each  one  a  shin 
ing  example  of  the  leadership  possible  to  our 
pulpits.  Not  long  ago,  after  an  outburst  of 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    211 

race  antagonism  which  was  being  chronicled 
and  condemned  in  all  the  papers,  I  asked  a 
Negro  from  a  neighbouring  state  if  such 
feeling  existed  in  his  section. 

"No,  ma'am,  it  don't,"  he  answered  em 
phatically  ;  "  not  for  a  long  time." 

"  Then  it  used  to  exist  ?  " 

"Oh,  yes'm.  We  ain't  had  a  thing  but 
trouble  till  these  last  few  years." 

"  What  stopped  it  ?  " 

"  A  white  preacher  stopped  it.  He  thought 
some  of  the  things  done  weren't  right ;  and 
he  got  all  the  white  preachers  in  town  to 
agree  to  preach  about  Christ's  way  of  treat 
ing  coloured  folks,  all  on  the  same  day. 
They  all  did  it  again  a  month  later,  and 
once  or  twice  more  that  year.  And  as  long 
as  he  stayed  there  they  all  preached  about  it 
together  that  way,  a  time  or  two  each  year ; 
and  there  ain't  any  trouble  since.  I  heard 
tell  two  or  three  white  folks  got  mad  about 
it ;  but  the  preachers  stuck  it  out.  And  now 
all  the  white  folks  treat  us  right,  and  we  all 
are  behaving  better,  and  everybody  is  pros 
pering  a  heap  better  than  they  used  to." 

Instances  like  this  will  multiply  as  our 
social  conscience  quickens.  A  fresh,  clean 
wind  stirs  over  the  South  before  which 
old  mists  of  prejudice  are  lifting.  Insufficient 


212          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

and  halting  as  the  work  of  the  churches  has 
been,  it  has  yet  testified  to  the  Christian 
duty  of  service  and  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
brotherhood.  That  all  the  churches  must  at 
some  points,  perhaps  at  many,  be  readjusted 
to  conditions  few  who  love  them  will  deny :  but 
in  England,  and  in  America,  North  and  South, 
it  is  the  churches  which  have  created  that 
social  conscience  which  some  deem  all-suffi 
cient  without  the  churches,  and  at  which  the 
churches  themselves  sometimes  look  askance, 
as  at  a  rival  which  would  usurp  their  domin 
ion.  The  Southern  Sociological  Congress  is 
the  first  South- wide  expression  of  this  nascent 
conscience;  and  no  one  who  attended  the 
Congress  meetings,  in  Nashville  or  in  Atlanta, 
could  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  religious 
spirit  in  which  men  of  many  faiths  had  met 
to  consider  their  common  duties  to  the  un 
privileged  of  the  South. 

Out  of  the  first  meeting  of  the  section  on 
Race  Relations  came  the  appointment  of 
a  Southern  University  Commission  on  the 
Negro,  with  a  representative  from  nearly 
every  Southern  state  university.  This  com 
mission  met  for  organization  in  December, 
1912.  It  reported  to  the  Atlanta  Congress  a 
broad  outline  of  investigation  to  be  under 
taken  in  regard  to  conditions — religious, 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    213 

educational,  hygienic,  economic  and  civic; 
the  duty  of  whites  in  improving  these  condi 
tions  ;  and  the  ideal  of  race-relations  towards 
which  the  South  should  work.  No  one  who 
has  heard  these  men  speak,  as  several  have 
already  done  in  public,  can  doubt  that  large 
hearts  and  clear  brains  are  at  work  upon  the 
whole  subject  in  a  spirit  of  justice  and  service. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  Con 
gress  at  large  ;  but  it  furnished  many  evi 
dences  of  a  social  conscience  at  last  astir  on 
all  community  interests.  The  sectional  meet 
ings  on  Race  Relations  were  a  dream  come 
true — a  dream  of  a  new  South,  with  the  old 
spirit  of  sympathy  once  more  in  the  heart  of 
the  strong,  and  hands  of  human  brotherhood 
held  out  to  the  weaker  race.  The  privileged 
South  has  at  last  opened  its  doors  of  counsel 
and  invited  the  unprivileged  to  enter  in  and 
talk  over,  men  with  men,  the  needs  and  duties 
which  confront  them  both  in  making  the  land 
a  home  of  justice  and  opportunity  for  all. 

But  that  was  not  the  whole  story.  With 
Southern  white  and  Southern  black  speaking 
from  the  same  platform,  and  seeing  in  so 
many  things  eye  to  eye  at  last,  were  men  of 
that  other  class  so  long  misunderstood  and 
misjudged  among  us — the  men  of  the  North 
who  came  long  ago  to  meet  a  great  human 


214          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

need  among  those  whom  we,  for  the  dark 
time  being,  had  closed  our  hearts  against. 
North  and  South  and  black  and  white  met 
there,  and  pledged  their  common  service  to 
a  common  humanity,  a  common  country, 
and  a  common  God. 

We  stood,  for  those  brief  days,  on  one  of 
those  mountain  tops  from  which  the  end  is 
seen,  near  and  beautiful  and  real.  After 
wards,  one  turns  to  the  rugged  path  again, 
and  faces  the  long,  long  road.  But  the  end 
is  still  real  and  beautiful,  and  as  certain  as 
Love  itself.  And  as  for  nearness,  shall  one 
measure  the  life  of  the  Race  of  Man  by  one's 
own  narrow  years  ;  or  the  world-wide  victory 
that  awaits  by  one's  tiny  measure  of  personal 
failure  or  success  ?  Though  we  ourselves 
pass  not  over,  yet  shall  our  brothers  possess 
the  land,  and  dwell  there. 

Sometimes  a  biologist,  studying  tissues 
under  the  microscope,  will  stain  some  cells 
and  not  others,  that  he  may  the  better  unravel 
some  of  life's  obscure  interactions. 

I  think  God  has  done  that  in  the  South, 
dyeing  our  weak  ones  black,  that  it  may  be 
clear  to  the  most  careless  what  the  weak 
have  to  suffer  from  the  selfishness  of  the 
strong.  Once  we  begin  to  see,  it  ought  to  be 


SERVICE  AND  COOPERATION    215 

easier  for  us  than  for  others  to  learn  com 
munity  righteousness,  because  the  effects  of 
evil  are  made  so  plain  among  us.  And  those 
who  look  on  from  afar  should,  rather  than 
criticize  us,  watch  more  closely  their  own  com 
munity  life,  where  the  strong  may  wrong  the 
weak  in  less  spectacular  fashion. 

It  may  be  long  before  it  is  all  stopped. 
The  evil  is  great  everywhere  ;  and  we  of  the 
South  have  been  slow  to  start  our  part  of  the 
fight  against  it.  But  we  have  started  now, 
at  last — not  as  individuals  only,  as  heretofore  ; 
but  as  a  constantly-growing  group  of  South 
ern  folk  who  feel  the  common  obligation  of 
those  who  have  to  serve  those  who  have  not. 

And  having  taken  these  first  steps  in  rec 
ognition  of  our  share  of  a  world-task  the 
main  peculiarity  of  our  Southern  situation 
has  vanished.  For  we  have  joined  hands, 
we  too,  at  last,  with  the  privileged  of  earth 
elsewhere,  to  set  free  those  without  privilege  ; 
to  serve  our  neighbour,  not  according  to  the 
colour  of  his  skin,  but  according  to  his  need. 


VII 

THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US 

BEING  parents  is  the  deepest  thing  in 
life.  It  runs  away  back  of  humanity, 
out  into  the  wild,  free  places,  where 
the  bird  broods  high  in  air,  and  the  weed  pours 
all  its  being  into  its  seed,  and  dies.  It  is 
doubtless  this  blood-kinship  stirring  in  us 
when  we  yearn  for  the  woods,  and  the  moun 
tains,  and  the  sea ;  some  inarticulate  inner 
consciousness  knows  all  these  as  homes  of 
life,  our  common  heritage,  our  common  trust. 
With  all  the  weight  of  suffering  of  those  to 
whom  the  highest  honours  of  that  trust  have 
been  committed,  and  who  have,  as  yet,  failed 
to  be  worthy  of  them,  we  turn  back  to  these 
haunts  of  simpler  and  more  loyal  forms  of 
life  for  rest,  and  for  strength  and  courage  for 
the  long  road  our  feet  have  yet  to  go. 

Parenthood  is  a  thing  to  bind  all  life  in 
one.  It  is  not  merely  that  nothing  human  is 
foreign  to  us  afterwards  :  no  life  that  grows 
by  sacrifice  is  alien ;  and  that  is  all  the  life 
there  is. 

It  seems  the  miracle  of  the  ages  that  we, 
216 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    217 

on  the  summit  of  life,  we  humans,  should  have 
made  this  thing  unclean  :  that  the  power  to 
pass  on  the  torch  of  life,  to  call  out  of  noth 
ingness  those  who  shall  shape  the  future  of 
the  race — that  this,  of  all  things,  should  be 
the  force  to  make  men  beasts  again,  and  to 
build  for  multitudes  of  the  women  of  all  races 
an  age-long  hell  on  earth. 

At  least  one  good  should  come  of  it :  it 
should  bind  the  women  of  the  world  in  one, 
Being  a  woman  goes  deeper  than  being  of 
this  race  or  that,  or  of  this  or  that  social 
station.  Red,  yellow,  or  black,  or  white,  we 
jarry  the  world's  sins  on  our  shoulders,  its 
degradation  and  anguish  in  our  hearts.  It 
all  falls  on  the  women,  the  lust,  the  degra 
dation,  the  suffering.  And  what  is  a  keener 
agony,  a  more  intolerable  shame,  it  falls  on 
the  women's  daughters,  whom  they  won 
in  the  valley  of  death.  Have  we  not 
reason  to  stand  together,  we  women  of  the 
world  ?  A  Chinese  girl  hawked  publicly  by 
her  owner  on  the  streets  of  Shanghai,  an 
Indian  maid  betrayed  in  the  forest,  girls  of  our 
own  race  by  scores  of  thousands,  Negro  girls 
whom  men  of  no  race  reverence — where  is 
the  difference  ?  They  are  women,  women  all ; 
and  women  bore  them  :  women  should  stand 
together  for  the  womanhood  of  the  world 


218          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

It  burns  like  fire  when  first  we  grasp  that 
truth.  It  is  inevitable,  in  the  beginning, 
when  the  knowledge  of  broken  lives  first 
flares  in  our  faces,  and  we  reach  hands  of 
fellowship  to  draw  some  poor  outcast  back 
into  the  circle  of  human  sympathy  again,  that 
women's  standing  together  should  mean  to 
us  their  standing  against  the  men.  We  are 
quick  to  hate,  when  we  are  young  ;  and  men 
are  an  easy  mark.  Nothing  excuses  them  to 
us,  nothing  palliates.  An  honoured  father,  a 
brother  whom  we  trust,  a  husband  well-be 
loved — these  are  the  accidents  of  the  sex ; 
creatures  in  whom,  by  some  great  miracle,  a 
touch  of  their  mothers'  souls  has  turned  dross 

to  gold :  but  for  men .  The  sharpest 

trial  of  faith  is  no  mental  question  to  a 
woman  ;  it  comes  straight  from  the  heart  of 
life,  terrible  and  fierce  :  Would  a  good  God 
make  women  as  women  are  made,  and  shut 
them  up  in  the  same  world  with  men  ? 

And  then,  into  such  a  woman's  life,  is  sent 
a  little  son.  He  shall  defy  the  law  of  his 
sex  ;  he  shall  be  pure,  though  all  men  else 
follow  the  common  path. 

She  lives  her  son's  life,  and  so  she  wins  the 
freedom  of  his  world.  It  takes  imagination, 
and  patience,  and  sympathy,  and  time.  But 
when  he  begins  to  run  with  other  boys  she 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    219 

has  his  confidence ;  and  so  she  learns,  as  we 
all  must,  by  love,  and  not  by  hate. 

What  chance  have  they,  these  little  boys, 
any  more  than  the  girls  whose  lives  they 
poison  ?  Before  they  know  the  meaning  of 
words  or  acts  their  lives  are  poisoned,  too. 
We  care  for  everything  about  them,  bodies 
and  minds,  except  this  highest  thing,  which 
we  call  unclean,  and  hide.  It  is  not  a  ques 
tion  of  a  child's  being  taught  or  not  taught  • 
he  learns,  as  surely  as  he  lives  and  breathes. 
It  is  a  question  of  how  he  shall  be  taught :  in 
truth  and  cleanness,  or  in  lies  and  filth.  And 
because  this  power  is  the  highest  intrusted  to 
us,  because  its  perversion  causes  more  misery 
and  degradation  than  everything  else  put  to 
gether,  the  right  training  of  children  in  mat 
ters  of  sex  is  a  basal  necessity  for  the  world's 
progress  in  righteousness.  Shall  we  dare  to 
remain  prudes  when  we  see  what  silence 
costs  our  children,  sons  and  daughters  both  ? 
Love  takes  no  account  of  such  childish  shrink 
ing,  however  much  love  may  feel  it :  love 
serves  the  beloved  unashamed,  and  at  any 
cost.  And  love  can  find  a  way. 

The  future  of  both  races  in  the  South  is 
more  deeply  concerned  in  this  than  in  any 
other  one  thing.  For  to  the  pure  all  achieve 
ment  is  possible  ;  and  for  the  impure  rotten- 


220          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

ness  and  decay  are  certain.  There  is  no 
reason  whatever  for  believing  that  any  one 
country  or  section  sins  above  the  rest  in  this 
matter.  Where  two  races  of  different  colours 
dwell  side  by  side,  one  strong,  one  weak,  the 
evidences  of  sin  are  not  to  be  hidden :  yet 
the  sin  exists  no  less,  though  less  visibly, 
where  strong  and  weak  are  of  one  skin.  But 
there  is  no  section  of  any  country  which  is 
not  implicated  in  the  authorized  statement  of 
physicians  of  world-repute  that  seventy  per 
cent,  of  the  men  of  Christendom  are,  or  have 
been,  sufferers  from  vice-diseases.  The 
meaning  of  such  a  statement  staggers  the 
mind :  the  stunted  bodies  and  souls  of  chil 
dren,  women's  long-drawn-out  torments,  the 
maiming  of  mind  and  flesh,  the  perverts,  the 
paupers,  the  insane  !  Shall  we  be  ashamed 
to  remove  burdens  like  these  from  those  who 
shall  follow  us  ?  Shall  we  shrink  from  send 
ing  the  children  of  the  South  out  unhandi- 
capped,  strong  of  body  and  pure  in  mind,  to 
build  the  homes  of  the  future  ;  homes  where 
white  folk  dwell,  where  black  folk  dwell,  each 
secure  from  wrong  and  from  fear  ? 

For  it  can  be  so.  There  is  a  new  day 
breaking.  Old  evils,  hoary  with  the  centuries 
until  we  have  accepted  them  as  inseparable 
from  life  itself,  are  being  challenged,  defied. 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    221 

The  German  Government  believes  the  purity 
of  young  men  not  impossible  of  attainment. 
It  orders  the  instruction  in  sex  hygiene  of 
every  college  student  in  the  land.  At  a  re 
cent  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Medical 
Association  one  of  their  leading  speakers,  in 
a  formal  address,  called  on  the  churches  of 
America  to  aid  the  doctors  in  their  fight 
against  the  social  evil  by  the  teaching  of  sex 
hygiene.  The  doctors  stood  long,  many  of 
them,  for  the  necessity  of  "  wild  oats."  As 
an  association  they  have  now  endorsed  the 
movement  for  social  purity  as  a  necessity  for 
personal  and  social  health.  That  great,  con 
servative  organization,  the  Church  of  Eng 
land,  has  undertaken  a  year's-long  campaign 
against  the  social  evil,  with  the  avowed  in 
tention  of  uprooting  it  from  English  life. 

Time  was  when  we  thought  yellow  fever 
was  providential.  A  providence  which  made 
yellow  fever  an  integral  part  of  the  scheme 
of  things  would  be  benevolent  indeed  beside 
a  providence  which  made  this  loathsome  can 
cer  a  necessity  of  human  life.  We  had  yel 
low  fever  because  we  had  not  learned  to  des 
troy  the  breeding-places  of  the  pests  which 
carry  it.  We  have  the  social  evil  for  exactly 
the  same  reason. 

Its    breeding-places    are    in    the  unclean 


222          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

thoughts  of  children  and  young  people  who 
were  made  to  think  cleanly.  There  is  noth 
ing  more  wonderful,  more  sacrificially  pure, 
than  the  great  law  of  life  by  which  life  comes 
from  life,  and  like  from  like,  strong  life  from 
pure,  and  weak  from  foul,  which  runs  through 
all  the  organisms  of  earth.  When  a  child  be 
gins  to  question  he  needs — and  she — not  lies, 
but  the  clean  truth.  If  the  mother  does  not 
answer  somebody  else  will ;  and  then  the 
poison  will  be  at  work. 

A  child  can  be  taught  unconsciously  to  rev 
erence  the  life-giving  power  which  he  holds 
in  trust.  When  the  stress  of  temptation 
comes,  swift  and  sharp,  he  may  find  himself 
prepared.  He  need  not  battle  in  the  dark, 
ignorant  of  himself,  of  the  meaning  of  life,  of 
its  dangers  and  rewards.  A  girl  can  be  pro 
tected  in  all  purity,  that  in  time  of  danger  she 
may  so  remain.  Our  parents  did  not  know  : 
but  for  an  intelligent  parent  to  send  children 
out  to-day  defenseless  against  the  contagions 
of  school  life  is  a  neglect  the  child  may  find 
it  impossible  to  forgive. 

There  is  a  little  book  by  Ellen  Torrelle, 
published  by  Heath,  called  "  Plant  and  Animal 
Children,  and  How  They  Grow."  One  need 
not  be  botanist  or  biologist  to  make  its  stories 
clear  to  children's  minds ;  and  a  child  who 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    223 

understands  its  facts  is  unconsciously  fortified 
against  uncleanness.  There  is  no  room  for 
impurity  concerning  the  origin  of  life,  not 
because  it  has  been  inveighed  against,  but 
because  its  possible  place  has  been  filled  with 
thoughts  beautiful  and  pure.  Another  book, 
which  all  adults  and  every  adolescent  boy 
should  read,  is  Lavinia  Dock's  "  Hygiene  and 
Morality,"  published  by  the  Putnams.  In  ad 
dition  to  these,  and  for  many  purposes,  par 
ents  would  do  well  to  read  Stanley  Hall's 
"  Youth,"  published  by  Appleton.  There  are 
many  other  books,  large  and  small,  a  list  of 
which  may  be  had  from  the  National  Vigi 
lance  Committee,  in  New  York. 

The  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  teach 
ing  of  such  books  as  Miss  Torrelle's  will  be 
obligatory  in  the  earlier  grades  of  the  public 
schools  ;  and  when  that  is  secured  for  those 
who  shall  come  after  us,  the  poor  man's 
home,  North,  South  and  West,  will  be  safer — 
yes,  and  the  homes  of  the  privileged  too. 
For  this  hideous  infection  can  never  be  con 
fined,  while  it  exists  at  all,  to  one  economic 
class,  or  to  this  or  that  locality.  It  breeds 
misery  and  degradation  for  the  community, 
just  so  far  as  it  breeds  at  all. 

But  education  is  not  the  only  measure  ;  nor 
need  we  wait  for  a  new  generation  to  grow 


224          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

up  to  introduce  wide-spread  reform.  Health 
laws  should  compel  all  physicians,  as  they  al 
ready  do  those  of  a  few  states  in  other  sec 
tions,  to  report  not  only  cases  of  the  lesser 
contagions,  such  as  scarlet  fever,  diphtheria 
and  the  like  ;  but  also  the  far  more  danger 
ous  contagions  of  the  vice-diseases.  With 
this  law  goes  a  second,  requiring  a  physi 
cian's  certificate  to  the  applicant's  freedom 
from  contagious  disease  before  a  marriage 
license  can  be  issued.  These  laws  are  being 
widely  advocated  by  physicians  of  the  high 
est  standing,  by  social  workers  everywhere, 
and  by  many  health  officers,  parents,  educa 
tors  and  ministers. 

Another  law  urgently  needed  in  many 
states,  and  in  no  section  more  than  in  our 
own,  is  one  raising  the  age  of  consent  to  at 
least  eighteen  years.  In  some  of  our  South 
ern  states  it  is  ten  years.  The  mere  statement 
of  such  a  fact  would  come  as  a  shock  to 
any  but  the  most  nascent  social  conscience. 
What  of  morality  can  we  hope  to  evolve  in 
the  classes  most  in  need  of  morality,  white  and 
black,  when  the  defenseless  childhood  of  the 
poor  is  held  so  cheap  by  law  ? 

But  beyond  all  this,  what  can  the  privileged 
mothers  do  for  those  unprivileged,  the  strong 
to  help  the  weak  ?  For  women  should  stand 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    225 

together,  for  the  manhood  and  the  woman 
hood  of  the  world.  Mothers  cannot,  if  they 
would,  break  the  tie  which  binds  them  to 
both  sexes,  to  the  whole  human  race. 

Privilege  exists  for  one  end  only — that  it 
may  become  the  common  servitor  of  all. 
We  pray  such  curious  prayers  sometimes,  in 
the  pulpit  and  out  of  it — prayers  which  auto 
matically  prevent  their  own  fulfillment.  We 
are  so  anxious  for  "  especial  "  care  and  good, 
for  "peculiar"  blessings,  for  things  which 
would  mark  us  as  a  folk  apart,  or  a  family, 
or  even  an  individual,  sheltered  from  ordi 
nary  trials,  lifted  above  the  multitude  who 
hunger,  separated  from  the  common  lot, 
favoured  of  heaven  beyond  other  folk ! 

A  god  who  would  answer  prayers  like 
those  it  should  be  beneath  one's  self-respect 
to  pray  to.  If  he  be  not  equally  the  God  of 
all  flesh,  he  is  no  god  for  any  flesh  to  petition. 
For  there  is  a  deep  sense  in  which  God  Him 
self  must  be  thought  of  in  terms  of  humanity, 
so  that  no  one  who  seeks  fullness  of  life,  which 
is  fullness  of  love,  may  dare  ask  any  protec 
tion,  any  mercy,  any  good  for  any  aspect  of  our 
many-sided  life,  the  giving  of  which  would 
imply  anything  whatever  "  especial "  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  not  open,  to  the  limit  of  his 
need,  to  the  least  of  all  flesh  who  may  ask  for  it. 


226          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

But  more  than  that.  When  we  get  this 
background  of  prayer  in  our  minds,  this  true 
perspective  of  our  own  needs  in  relation  to 
those  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  we  see  the 
basis  of  justice  on  which  the  fulfilling  of  those 
needs  must  rest.  It  is  for  lack  of  justice  in 
our  petitions  that  we  have  so  largely  been,  in 
all  the  ages, 

"Bafflers  of  our  own  prayers,  from  youth  to  life's 
last  scenes." 

Mothers  should  understand,  because  love 
costs  them  more,  and  so  they  should  be  wiser 
in  its  ways.  There  can  be  no  safe  basis  for 
prayer  for  one's  child  except  this  basis  of 
justice.  If  we  desire  protection  for  our 
daughters,  or  purity  for  our  sons,  strong 
bodies  for  them  and  trained  minds,  a  place 
for  happy  play,  freedom  and  joy  in  work,  a 
life  made  rich  by  love  and  service,  it  is 
strange  that  we  should  dare  to  ask  these 
things  of  a  just  God  except  as  we  pledge  our 
full  strength  to  effort  to  secure  like  good  for 
all  the  children,  the  world  around,  to  whom 
it  is  denied. 

What  things  that  we  desire  for  our  children 
do  Negro  children  lack?  I  do  not  mean  the 
luxuries,  nor  even  many  of  the  comforts  of  life  : 
but  those  basal  necessities  to  any  clean,  effi- 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    227 

cient,  hopeful  life,  however  humble  and  poor : 
abundant  water  and  fresh  air,  with  a  knowl 
edge  of  their  uses  ;  houses  where  homes  are 
possible  ;  sanitary  surroundings  ;  school  train 
ing  which  really  trains  ;  a  chance  for  clean 
play  ;  mothers  who  can  approximate  a  moth 
er's  duties;  religious  instruction  related  to 
daily  life.  Without  these  things,  what  kind 
of  people  are  they  foredoomed  to  be  ?  And 
whose  is  the  responsibility  ? 

But  more  than  that.  Women  make  the 
standards  for  every  community  in  our  land. 
North,  South  and  West,  community  morals 
and  ideals  are  exactly  what,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  consciences  of  the  priv 
ileged  women  of  that  community  permit.  If 
the  morality  of  the  daughters  of  the  very  poor 
is  to  be  safeguarded  anywhere,  it  must  be 
done  by  the  privileged  women  primarily. 
And  our  very  poor  are  black. 

We  need,  in  the  first  place,  to  see  the 
women  of  our  poor  as  women  first,  and  black 
afterwards.  We  need  a  new  respect  for  them 
in  our  own  minds,  as  children  of  the  one 
Father,  even  as  we.  We  need  more  faith  in 
the  possibilities  of  the  poorest  life  which  is 
born  with  a  capacity,  however  limited,  for 
divine  things.  We  need  to  use  our  imagina 
tions,  to  put  ourselves  in  the  Negro  woman's 


228          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

place.  We  will  find  the  exercise  as  broaden 
ing  to  our  own  lives  as  it  will  be  beneficial  to 
the  Negro's.  We  need  to  think  of  Negro 
womanhood  as  sacred,  as  the  womanhood  of 
all  the  world  must  be.  Thinking  so,  we  will 
begin  to  honour  its  possibilities,  and  try  to 
bring  them  out.  And  if  we  hold  up  that 
standard,  our  men  will  come  to  it ;  they  can 
not  help  themselves.  It  is  women  who  rule 
the  world — or  who  can  rule  it,  always,  if  only 
they  will  stand  together.  It  is  not  merely 
that  we  have  the  men  when  they  are  babies. 
Beyond  that  tremendous  fact  men  are  depend 
ent  on  women  as  women  are  not  upon  men. 
When  women  fix  the  terms  on  which  men 
may  secure  their  companionship  and  their 
love  men  must  meet  the  conditions :  they 
have  no  escape.  Only,  women  must  stand 
together,  for  womanhood,  and  for  the  race. 

Let  us  plan  the  future  of  the  South  we  love 
under  a  wide  sky.  Let  us  plan,  not  for  our 
children  merely,  nor  for  our  race,  else  can  the 
plans  never  bear  full  fruit.  All  that  we  want 
for  our  own  let  us  plan  for  the  children  of  the 
South,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  black 
and  white  :  strong  bodies,  clean  minds,  hands 
skilled  to  labour,  hearts  just  and  kind  and 
wise.  Children  do  not  grow  like  that  of 
themselves,  any  more  than  roses  grow 


THOSE  WHO  COME  AFTER  US    229 

double  in  the  swamps :  it  is  the  children's 
power  to  respond  to  cultivation  which  lays 
upon  us  the  duty  of  giving  it. 

I  knew  a  family  once  where  there  were 
several  normal  children,  and  one  little  child, 
the  youngest,  whom  epilepsy  had  reduced 
almost  to  idiocy.  He  was  most  repulsive 
to  me  when  I  first  saw  him,  before  I  under 
stood.  He  seemed  that  awful  thing  which 
some  imagine  they  see  in  the  world's  un 
developed  races — something  in  human  shape 
without  human  capacity. 

But  his  parents  loved  him  so  much  !  Their 
tenderness  never  failed  for  him,  their  care 
never  abated.  They  loved  the  other  children 
dearly,  too ;  but  this  child  needed  them  so 
much  :  they  loved  him  according  to  his  need. 

Think  of  them  for  a  moment — the  hordes  of 
the  unprivileged  of  every  race ;  those  cut  off 
from  joy  ;  the  folk  whose  years  are  filled  only 
with  a  great  emptiness,  with  immeasurable 
ignorance  and  want ;  the  mass  of  men  and 
women,  really,  the  vast  majority  of  the  human 
race.  And  God  so  loves  the  world — just  so : 
according  to  the  need. 


VIII 

THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 

I  CANNOT  close  this  little  book  without 
a  word  concerning  those  whose  child 
hood  is  behind  them,  and  who  are  soon 
to  take  their  places  in  that  great  array  of 
toilers  whose  hands  are  moulding  the  world's 
life  in  the  present.  Life  looms  before  them 
as  the  Great  Adventure,  wherein  difficulties 
and  trials  may  await  them,  but  which,  in 
some  unknown,  far-off  place,  shall  issue  in 
achievement ;  in  something  which  shall  win 
them  a  place  and  honour  which  their  own 
effort  has  secured  for  them,  well-deserved. 

We  older  people,  the  mass  of  us  at  least, 
look  on  as  the  raw  recruits  pass  out,  and 
smile,  some  of  us  kindly,  some  pityingly, 
some  with  bitterness,  seeing  their  young 
enthusiasms,  the  high  resolves  and  hopes 
which  drive  them,  the  gleam  of  the  half- 
formed  ideals  which  lure  them  on.  Life  will 
grip  these  over-confident  children,  we  think, 
and  trim  them  all  to  one  sober  pattern  by  the 
time  they  reach  middle  age.  They  will  learn 
230 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE        231 

fast  enough  to  accept  its  drudgery  and  to 
bow  to  its  yoke.  In  the  valley  of  old  age 
they  will  stand  much  as  their  fathers  stood, 
moulded  by  life,  not  moulding  it,  their 
laughter  done  ;  strong  perhaps,  but  strong 
chiefly  to  accept  and  to  bear  the  inevitable. 

Is  that  the  normal  end  of  youth,  the  natural 
outcome  of  the  Great  Adventure  ;  or  are  we 
so  ill-adjusted  to  our  environment  that  the 
abnormal  is  the  usual  and  the  normal  the  un 
common  outcome  of  the  quest  ? 

Surely  power  is  never  intended  for  futility, 
and  only  ignorance  can  unmoved  see  it  turned 
to  waste.  Yet  if  we  measure  in  terms  of  hu 
man  energy  the  advance  of  any  one  genera 
tion,  and  compare  it  with  the  force  originally 
applied  to  secure  advance,  with  that  fund  of 
energy,  of  hope  and  joy  which  we  sum  up  as 
youth,  the  waste  of  power  is  staggering.  It 
is  only  the  smallest  fraction  of  it  which  has 
been  utilized :  the  rest  has  been  absorbed  by 
frictions  which  have  largely  wrecked  the 
generators  themselves.  The  energy  of  youth 
has  gone  to  the  destruction  of  all  that  makes 
youth  young  and  wonderful.  The  one-time 
possessors  of  it  stand  broken,  exhausted, 
numbed,  in  the  valley  of  the  Shadow  ;  and 
the  world  they  intended  to  lift  has  turned  by 
a  hair's  breadth,  and  no  more. 


232          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

Yet  some  find  youth  but  a  gateway  into  a 
life  which  knows  no  age.  Their  bodies  grow 
older,  but  only  to  reveal  to  the  puzzled  looker- 
on  how  very  little  years  are  concerned  with 
either  age  or  youth.  Down  to  the  very  last 
their  hearts  are  young,  their  fine  enthusiasms 
unspent,  their  sympathies  quick  and  keen, 
their  joy  unbroken,  their  hope  a  light  no 
shadow  can  quench.  Out  of  a  long  life  filled, 
as  we  may  know,  chiefly  with  drudgeries  and 
trials  like  our  own,  they  come  with  young, 
eager  eyes,  out  of  which  still  looks  the  spirit 
of  high  adventure.  Their  message  to  youth 
is  one  of  courage  and  hope  : 

"  Grow  old  along  with  me  ! 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made." 

Surely  that  is  the  normal  attitude  of  age, 
the  natural  outcome  of  youth  and  endeavour 
and  hope.  Wherever  we  see  it,  even  the 
dullest  of  us,  it  appeals  to  some  deep  thing 
in  us  which,  despite  all  our  pessimism,  justi 
fies  it,  even  against  our  will.  It  is  so  beauti 
ful  we  know  it  must  be  true :  all  age  was 
meant  to  be  like  that. 

But  how  shall  youth  attain  it?  What 
subtle  force  has  turned  one  life  into  this  flash 
ing  diamond,  and  left  another  only  dull,  black 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE       233 

coal,  though  they  are  both  alike  compact  of 
a  common  humanity,  and  share  its  common 
lot  ?  How  shall  we  gear  the  spirit  of  youth, 
how  band  the  individual  to  life  in  such  man 
ner  that  he  may  serve  it  without  being  broken 
by  it ;  that  he  may  drive  on  towards  the  ful 
fillment  of  his  dreams,  nor  lose  his  hope,  nor 
despair  of  the  far  achievement,  but  keep  even 
in  age 

"  The  rapture  of  the  forward  view/1 

and  the  spirit  of  immortal  joy  ?  If  life  be  the 
Great  Adventure  how  may  one  achieve  it 
greatly,  and  know  one's  self  a  victor,  even  in 
the  midnight  of  defeat  ? 

One  must  live  the  normal  human  life  to 
secure  all  that.  We  cannot  expect  human 
issues  from  a  life  lived  on  the  animal's  plane. 
An  animal  which  is  only  an  animal  may  come 
to  the  best  of  itself  in  isolation,  an  unrelated 
unit  of  its  race.  A  young  colt,  or  pig,  or 
calf,  left  on  an  island  where  no  other  animal 
life  existed,  but  provided  with  food  and  shelter 
the  primal  animal  needs,  would  be  as  perfect 
an  animal  as  one  reared  in  association  with 
droves  of  its  own  kind.  But  a  creature  which 
is  an  animal  and  something  more  never 
comes  to  the  best  of  itself  when  only  those 
needs  are  met  which  may  be  satisfied  in 


234          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

isolation.  There  are  several  authentic  rec 
ords  of  wolf-raised  human  young,  and  they 
have  all  reverted  to  the  animal  type.  Kip 
ling's  Mowgli,  fascinating  as  he  is,  is  in 
spired  by  his  creator's  own  imagination  ;  a 
real  Mowgli  could  never  have  taken  his  place 
among  human  beings  again,  even  on  the 
edge  of  the  jungle.  Real  wolf-children  are 
like  the  Wild  Man  of  Auvergne,  whom  a  wise- 
hearted  scientist  laboured  with  so  patiently 
over  a  hundred  years  ago.  Cut  off  from  hu 
man  association  the  human  in  us  atrophies 
beyond  recall.  For  the  primal  law  of  human 
life  is  that  to  be  truly  human  it  must  be  shared 
with  its  kind. 

When  we  get  down  to  principles  of  life  we 
are  prone,  unconsciously,  to  fall  into  Biblical 
phraseology ;  the  roots  of  principles  seem  to 
run  in  that  direction.  It  is  literally  true  that 
no  man  liveth  or  dieth  to  himself :  humanity 
is  made  that  way.  Whatever  lives  and  dies 
some  other  way  is  not  human,  but  animal. 
We  live,  we  draw  on  the  sources  of  life,  we 
nourish  and  strengthen  it,  in  exact  measure 
as  we  share  it  with  the  race. 

This  is  the  secret  of  our  wasted  joy,  our 
lost  enthusiasms,  our  broken  hopes  :  we  have 
failed  of  the  normal  human  life,  the  life  of 
race-association,  the  life  of  brotherhood. 


POOR  HOUSING  CONDITIONS  IN  THE  SOUTH 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE       235 

The  drop  of  water  has  lost  itself  and  perished 
in  the  desert  of  individual  desire,  instead  of 
finding  itself  in  the  stream  of  community  life 
which  trickles  down  through  ever-widening 
associations  to  the  great  ocean  of  the  Life  of 
Man.  In  a  most  vital  sense,  the  normal  man, 
full-grown,  has  nothing  to  do  with  sections  or 
boundaries,  except  as  they  help  him  to  un 
derstand  those  of  his  brothers  whom  they 
dwarf  and  bind.  For  himself,  he  is'  a  citizen 
of  the  world  ;  and  nothing  in  human  life  is 
foreign  to  him,  past,  present,  or  to  come. 
The  sense  of  race-life  in  himself,  one  atom  of 
the  mass,  of  the  race-life  whose  laws  govern 
atom  and  mass  alike,  opens  all  life  to  him, 
steadies  his  courage,  heals  his  wounds,  re 
news  his  youth,  and  feeds  the  flame  of  hope. 

One's  individual  joy  may  be  clouded  so 
easily,  and  so  soon  ;  it  is  such  a  small,  weak 
thing,  taken  by  itself.  It  is  part  of  the  law 
of  life  that  it  should  be  so  ;  for  he  who  would 
be  man  and  not  animal  must  be  welded  into 
one  with  his  fellows;  and  love  itself  is  not 
enough,  without  pain. 

Suffering  is  so  inexplicable,  at  first ;  it  sets 
one  apart  while  life  sweeps  by.  But  one  has 
to  be  apart  to  get  the  perspective  of  life,  to 
see  small  and  great  in  their  true  proportions, 
to  learn  the  unshakable  things,  and  to  get 


236          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

one's  own  small  personality  properly  related 
to  them.  At  first,  with  all  of  us,  it  is  the  old 
cry  :  Was  ever  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow, 
or  difficulty  like  to  mine  ? — That  is  the  cry 
of  ignorance,  of  weakness,  of  selfishness, 
of  egotism  and  provincialism,  the  world 
around.  It  has  gone  up  in  all  ages,  and  will 
go  up  for  ages  yet  to  come. 

But  if  one  turns  from  one's  atom-sorrow 
for  a  moment  to  take  the  race-wide,  age-long 
look,  one  sees  that  always,  everywhere,  such 
sorrows  have  been.  They  are  part  of  the 
race-lot  And  everywhere  there  are,  and 
have  been,  men  and  women  who  have  borne 
them  bravely,  and  lived  and  died  without  bit 
terness  or  complaint.  Their  lives  are  part  of 
the  race  inheritance  ;  their  courage  lifts  us  up. 
What  man  has  done  we  can  do  ;  they  fought 
their  battles  not  for  themselves  alone.  The 
strength  of  the  race  flows  into  us :  we  too  can 
greatly  bear  ;  we  too  can  wear  the  badge  of 
courage  to  hearten  those  who  stumble  by  the 
way.  If  the  race  must  advance  through  suf 
fering  we  will  walk  that  path.  We  would 
not  be  exempt,  cut  off.  Shall  we  alone,  of  all 
the  multitudes,  bear  no  scars  ? 

Personal  success  means  something  differ 
ent  after  that.  The  Adventure  itself  is  differ 
ent  ;  greater,  and  more  worth  while.  The 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE        237 

quest  one  would  achieve  is  fullness  of  life ; 
the  path  to  it  matters  not  so  much.  And  full 
ness  of  life  is  never  personal,  but  human. 
One  has  cast  in  one's  lot  with  the  race ;  and 
in  doing  that,  whatever  struggles  are  yet  to 
come,  the  visible  can  no  longer  master  the 
unseen.  One  is  delivered  from  that  poverty 
of  soul. 

The  greatest  danger  of  education  is  that  it 
may  be  twisted,  just  like  ignorance,  to  the 
service  of  intellectual  arrogance,  and  so  may 
breed  spiritual  decay.  We  all  need  world- 
association  ;  but  especially  those  need  it  who 
are  unusually  gifted,  that  they  may  escape 
the  catastrophe  of  an  emasculating  egotism. 
The  man  who  is  the  mental  superior  of  all  his 
associates  can  neutralize  that  dangerous  mis 
fortune  only  by  finding  his  equals  and  his 
superiors  wherever,  in  the  race-life,  they  have 
blossomed  to  the  light.  He  must  break  the 
shackles  of  time  and  place  to  commune  with 
the  mind  of  the  race  ;  and  through  that  com 
munion  must  learn  the  humility  inevitable  to 
him  who  measures  himself  by  universal, 
rather  than  by  provincial  standards.  Thus 
disciplined,  he  may  add  his  atom  of  force  to 
the  race-impetus  towards  righteousness  with 
out  pride  and  without  shame. 

In  such  an  association  the  race  gains  in- 


238          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

finitesimally :  the  individual  gains  the  eman 
cipation  of  his  individuality,  and  walks  hence 
forth  at  liberty  and  with  joy.  The  sting  is 
gone  from  the  thwarting  narrowness  of 
life ;  for  the  small  task,  set  in  its  large  rela 
tions,  is  at  once  worth  while.  He  is  lifted 
enough  above  pettiness,  his  own  and  that  of 
others,  to  know  it  for  what  it  is,  and  to  be 
safe  from  the  hurt  of  it.  Personal  defeat,  too, 
loses  its  bitterness.  However  his  individual 
life  goes  down  in  ruins,  the  great  powers  of 
truth  and  brotherhood  to  which  he  has  com 
mitted  himself  remain  ;  that  for  which  he 
struggled  will  triumph  yet.  His  life,  defeated 
though  it  be,  is  part  of  the  victory  of  the  race. 
One's  sense  of  joy  is  widened.  Indeed,  it 
has  to  be,  or  one  could  not  endure  the  shar 
ing  of  the  sorrows  of  mankind.  But  the  race 
is  achieving,  always.  Each  day  sees  some 
thing  done  which  stirs  the  blood  in  the  long 

"  World -war  of  dying  flesh  against  the  life." 

Each  day  somewhere  the  curtains  of  the 
dark  are  lifted,  and  new  knowledge  gives 
new  light.  Each  day  men  and  women  of  all 
races,  plain,  simple  folk  like  ourselves,  are 
meeting  difficulties  with  high  hearts,  unknown 
heroes  in  unguessed  fights.  And  we  are  a 
part  of  all  of  it ;  we  all  work  to  one  end. 


THE  GKEAT  ADVENTURE       239 

Seen  from  the  narrow  window  of  a  de 
tached  personal  experience,  life  is  confusing, 
baffling,  coming  no-whence,  going  no- 
whither,  bound  blind  to  the  wheel  of  chance, 
and  broken  as  it  turns.  It  is  the  race-look 
which  reveals  the  truth.  The  confusions  are 
temporary,  local,  born  of  continued  readjust 
ments  to  higher  levels.  Whatever  its  weak 
ness  or  its  ignorance,  life  tends  up.  Men  die, 
and  races  pass  ;  but  Man  rises.  One  is  no 
longer  afraid  of  changes,  though  to  the  atom's 
unrelated  consciousness  the  very  foundations 
seem  threatened.  There  is  a  Power  that 
guides :  and  in  the  end,  that  which  was 
planned  from  the  beginning  shall  be. 

So  it  is  that  the  consciousness  of  race-life 
forms  the  rich  background  of  our  own  small 
existence,  giving  depth  and  colour  to  our 
thin  personalities,  enriching  and  beautifying 
the  poorest  life  which  may  be  set  against  it. 
It  saves  us,  too,  in  those  times  which  come 
to  all  of  us,  when  a  sense  of  the  futility  of  life 
descends  upon  us  like  a  great  black  frost, 
shrivelling  effort  which  had  promised  fruit 
age,  and  numbing  the  sources  of  energy  and 
hope.  It  is  then  that  we  warm  our  hearts  at 
the  hearthstone  of  humanity,  folded  deep  in 
the  consciousness  of  a  life  which  bears  our 
tiny  being  on  its  breast,  and  which  moves 


240          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

unerringly,  if  slowly,  through  seed-time  and 
harvest,  summer  and  winter,  to  one  sure, 
high,  far-off  goal. 

But  the  race-life  is  not  only  shelter  and  sol 
ace  in  days  of  suffering  or  defeat :  it  is  also 
our  inspiration  and  joy. 

To  him  who  walks  in  love  among  his 
neighbours  in  the  little  happenings  of  every 
day,  and  out  into  love's  wider  paths  of  com 
munity  service,  there  comes,  sooner  or  later, 
a  day  when  every  cloud  is  withdrawn ;  when 
he  sees  back  to  the  low  beginnings  of  life, 
and  on,  to  its  far  fulfillment.  He  sees  human 
ity  in  its  first  home,  there  in  the  mud  and 
slime  of  things,  pushing  feebly  forward  here 
and  there,  driven  by  sharp  necessity,  inch  by 
inch,  dyeing  the  path  with  its  own  blood,  yet 
slowly  accumulating,  out  of  its  own  suffer 
ings,  forces  which  purify  and  lift  it.  It  be 
gins  to  live  not  by  bread  alone :  each  least 
advance  is  purchased  for  it  by  some  sacrifi 
cial  life.  From  every  rank  of  the  vast  savage 
mass  the  Givers  come,  offering  up  man's  life 
for  the  Life  of  Man.  Seer  and  sage  and  war 
rior,  king  and  peasant,  master  and  slave, 
mothers  whom  no  man  may  number,  they 
pour  out  life  like  water,  and  thereby  fructify 
the  barren  souls  of  the  multitude,  and  create 
ideals  for  the  race. 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE       241 

What  else  should  life  be  for  ?  What  trace 
is  left  of  all  the  beast-lives  lived  solitary  in  the 
mass,  smothered  in  egotism,  cut  off  by  self 
ishness — what,  but  an  added  weight  for 
these,  the  Givers,  to  lift  ? 

Love  is  the  motive  force  of  life,  and  it 
gathers,  more  and  more.  Out  of  the  mass 
emerge  those  races  whose  growing  powers 
endue  them  with  the  greatest  capacity  for 
sacrifice,  for  following  the  ideal  at  all  costs. 
However  the  majority  of  even  these  foremost 
races  may  fall  short,  however  the  hard-won 
earnings  of  the  race  are  perverted  by  the 
many  to  personal  ends,  Love  does  make 
headway,  slowly.  All  that  the  Givers  would 
win  for  men  of  liberty,  of  knowledge,  of  jus 
tice,  of  joy,  filters  down  unceasingly  from 
class  to  class,  until  already  some  of  the  most 
precious  things  of  life  grow  as  common  to 
them  all  as  the  air  we  breathe. 

Is  not  the  life  of  the  Givers  well-spent? 
In  all  the  long,  long  ages  is  anything  else  so 
well  worth  while  ?  They  lost  life  only  to  find 
it ;  and  being  dead,  they  yet  speak  to  us. 
Their  voices  go  up 

"  A  cry  above  the  conquered  years," 

and  the  deepest  things  in  us  stir  in  answer. 
In  such  an  hour  we  know  life  for  what  it 


242          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

really  is — the  power  which  comes  in  all  its 
glorious  fullness  only  to  those  who  hold  it  in 
trust  for  every  soul  that  needs. 

Is  there  room  for  egotism  any  more,  or 
pride — those  two  chief  stranglers  of  human 
joy  ?  Can  one  be  afraid  of  "  losing  caste  "  by 
service  ?  One  lives  in  a  world  so  far  removed 
from  all  that — the  world  of  fullness  of  life  ;  a 
world  wide  with  freedom,  and  rich  with  love, 
and  bright  with  victory,  however  one's  own 
small  fortunes  may  rise  or  fall.  For  the  soul 
has  come  into  its  own,  and  found  its  home, 
close  to  the  heart  of  God,  in  the  needs  of 
humankind. 

Shall  we  fail  of  this  wide,  free  life  here  in 
the  South  because  of  old  prejudice,  and  black 
skins  over  the  needs  ?  Shall  we,  who  were 
once  so  low,  who  have  risen,  not  through 
decades  but  through  centuries,  risen  by  life 
poured  out,  reaping  our  gain  from  the  sacrifice 
of  the  ages,  heirs  in  direct  spiritual  succes 
sion  of  all  foregone  races  of  men,  shall  we, 
of  all  mankind,  withhold  our  bread  from 
the  hungry,  and  justice  from  the  oppressed  ? 

We  are  so  ready  to  use  what  we  have 
inherited,  not  for  service,  but  for  pride.  If 
humanity  be  like  the  earth,  we  say,  we  are 
its  mountain-peaks,  the  Himalayas  of  the 
race. — But  the  seas  rolled  over  the  mountains 


THE  GKEAT  ADVENTURE        243 

once ;  and  seas  may  roll  there  again.  To 
the  long  look,  the  true  look,  the  look  to  which 
a  thousand  years  are  but  a  day,  mountains 
have  risen  before,  and  have  disappeared. 

"  The  hills  are  shadows,  and  they  flow 

From  form  to  form,  and  nothing  stands ; 
They  melt  like  mists,  the  solid  lands, 
Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves,  and  go." 

The  earth  alone  abides,  mother  of  all  moun 
tains  that  ever  were,  or  will  be. 

If  life  is  not  to  grow  dull  to  us,  young  or 
old,  or  its  glamour  fade ;  if  we  are  one  day 
to  stand  on  those  heights  which  belong  to 
age  rather  than  on  the  dull,  flat  barrens  at 
their  base  ;  if  life  is  to  remain  the  Great 
Adventure,  full  of  promise  and  wonder  even 
in  that  last  twilight  before  the  eternal  dawn, 
we  must  live  it  normally,  through  the  years, 
despising  no  service  that  sets  another  heart 
at  ease  or  opens  a  rift  of  opportunity  to  the 
poorest  and  least. 

The  beginnings  of  all  great  things  are 
small.  Indeed,  most  great  things  are  small 
all  the  way  through,  made  up  of  trifles,  and 
great  only  in  their  accumulated  results.  Only 
the  fewest  people  have  great  gifts  or  oppor 
tunities  ;  and  often  they  are  not  the  ones  who 
achieve  the  greatest  things.  A  world  filled 


244          IN  BLACK  AND  WHITE 

with  ordinary  folk  and  based  on  justice 
necessitates  a  broad  path  straight  from  the 
commonplaces  of  every  day  up  to  the  highest 
heights.  And  we  have  just  that.  The  basal 
necessity  is  not  knowledge,  nor  power,  but 
love ;  and  that  is  the  greatest  and  the  most 
freely  attained  of  all  human  possessions. 
Rich  or  poor  or  ignorant  or  learned,  the 
Great  Adventure  shall  be  achieved  by  all  who 
walk  in  love. 


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SOCIOLOGY  AND  PRACTICAL   RELIGION 

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m  — —          The  American  Government 

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FICTION 


CAROLINE  ABBOT  STANLEY  „  Author  of 
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The  Keeper  of  the  Vineyard 

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RICHARD  S.  HOLMES 

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CHARLES   H.    LERRIGO 

Doc  Williams 

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I.    ?T.    McCASH 

The  Horizon  of  American  Missions 

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subject.  Some  of  the  topics  treated  are: — "A  Historic  Survey 
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MARY  CLARK  BARNES  and  DR.  LEMUEL  C.  BARNES 

The  New  America 

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LAURA  GEROULD  CRAIG 

America,  God's  Melting  Pot 

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LEILA  ALLEN  DIMOCK 

Comrades  from  Other  Lands 

Home  Mission  Junior  Text  Book.  Illustrated, 
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This  book  is  complementary  to  the  last  volume  in  this 
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BORS  which  treated  of  the  lives  and  occupations  of  foreign 
ers  in  our  cities.  This  latter  tells  what  the  immigrants  are 
doing  in  country  industries.  Teachers  of  children  of  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  will  find  here  material  to  enlist  the 
pathies  and  bold  the  interest  of  their  scholars. 


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